


The Cup of Their Deserving (the wages of their virtue)

by DreamingPagan



Series: Cup of Their Deserving [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Anal Sex, And Madi is not amused, Canon Divergent AU, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I cannot emphasize enough that this is not a Silver-friendly fic, If you are a Silver fan this is probably not the fic for you, In Which John Silver has Fucked Up, M/M, Madi and Flint both deserved better, Madi to the rescue, Protective Madi, Rimming, Slash, Wherein Jack Rackham meets Thomas Hamilton, finale fix-it, please no flak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2018-10-30 17:55:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 65,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10881966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingPagan/pseuds/DreamingPagan
Summary: “If I leave them here, will you bathe on your own?” she asks. Flint does not answer, and she feels something catch in her throat. He will not, she knows - he has not taken the effort to so much as remove his shirt or attempt to deal with his bleeding wounds, preferring instead to sit, exhausted, on the barrel, staring into the middle distance, contemplating God alone knows what. She cannot blame him - there has been much to think on this day. She herself cannot put out of her mind just how close she has come to losing this - to losing him.Madi decides not to be sent away after her rescue. When she returns to Skeleton Island, she finds a betrayal in progress and takes steps to save her friend and put her people's choice regarding the war back in their hands.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doesnottorturechickens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doesnottorturechickens/gifts), [Theonenamedafterahat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theonenamedafterahat/gifts).



> Major huge thanks go to my faithful, wonderful beta Bean, who has read this over, hashed things out with me, and generally been The Best(tm) throughout the writing. There's at least one line in the first chapter that is entirely her work and I really hope that she someday decides to post some fic of her own because her character voices are always so spot-on. 
> 
> Based on a prompt on the kinkmeme wherein Madi rescues Flint, helps him rescue Thomas, and generally saves the day because she's fantastic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I rave about Bean a lot - that's because she's awesome, as evidenced by the shiny new gif that goes with this chapter!

_The Eurydice:_

Madi’s hands are shaking.

It has been a long day - too long, like the days before it for the past month, since she was taken from her friends - from her family, clapped in irons and held hostage and right now, she wants nothing more than to go to sleep. She wants to be safe again - to allow herself a moment alone, even, but that -

That is not a luxury she can afford at present.

“Your Highness,” one of her men says from behind her, and Madi holds up a hand, the gesture sharp, forbidding further conversation.

“No,” she says. “I will do it myself. Stand guard outside the door. No disturbances, and no discussions with -” she stops, taking another deep breath. By all the gods, she cannot keep his face out of her head. “With Mr. Silver’s men. Is that understood?”

Her guard nods silently, and she closes her eyes. She cannot show the man beyond this door the face she wears right now - the worry, or the doubt, or the trembling of her hands that she can feel as she holds them at her sides. She can do this. She can. She will.

For him.

Madi opens her eyes, and reaches forward, knocking on the door before her gently. She does not want to startle the occupant - not after the day he has had. Not ever again, and Asaase Yaa, if she has to move heaven and earth to ensure that he never has another day like this one, she will do it. Someone must. When there is no answer, she unlatches the door, swinging it inward slowly, carefully - unusually carefully, given that this is her own ship as of this moment.

“Captain?” she calls, and gets no answer. She frowns, moving forward. Flint had agreed to draw her a map to the cache when they had first returned to the ship, and she had thought little of it, but now she wonders if it was not more of an excuse to retreat than anything. The man sits on a barrel, seemingly having simply sat down there and forgotten to move again once his rear hit the wood, his green eyes staring off into space, blood and dirt still caked on the side of his face and hands.

"Captain Flint?” she tries again, and sees his eyes flicker toward her - sees the hand that is still holding the newly-drawn map twitch, the other held close to him, the blood oozing out of a cut on it and staining his shirt even further, and she winces. He looks as though he’s aged ten years in the last hour, the bags under his eyes more pronounced than ever, and the look in those eyes is more haunted than she has ever seen. It is not the look of a man who won a major naval victory only hours before - it is the look of a man who is utterly defeated, the fight gone out of him entirely, and once again she feels rage wash through her at the one who has done this - at the bastard son of a mangy cat that currently sits in the hold of the ship in the very chains she has taken off of Flint’s wrists. He has done this - taken her best general and her friend and broken him like this, and she wants to go and strangle him with her own two hands, but that would not accomplish what she wishes, nor would it reassure the man in front of her, and he has the first priority right now.

“I brought water,” Madi tells him, holding up the pitcher and bowl that she has brought with her, and watches, unsettled, as he turns his head minutely, his eyes focusing on the items for a second. He looks at her, and then closes his eyes, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his thighs.

“If I leave them here, will you bathe on your own?” she asks. Flint does not answer, and she feels something catch in her throat. He will not, she knows - he has not taken the effort to so much as remove his shirt or attempt to deal with his bleeding wounds, preferring instead to sit, exhausted, on the barrel, staring into the middle distance, contemplating God alone knows what. She cannot blame him - there has been much to think on this day. She herself cannot put out of her mind just how close she has come to losing this - to losing him.

_Madi had decided that she did not wish to leave approximately an hour after the battle was won._

_It had not sat right - leaving, when matters were still not entirely in hand. The fight had been a thing removed from her, confined to the decks above, and yet she had felt at times almost like a part of it as she listened to the guns fire and the men shouting and felt the almighty jolt as one ship had run into another. She had stayed in her small cell - had not attempted to leave it, despite her fear. She might have done - she knew the likelihood of all the men being above deck, but she was also aware that she was not, in any sense of the word, a fighter. To go up would have been suicide, and yet -_

_It had been a relief to finally see the light of day again - to breathe the air that still smelled of gunpowder and blood and know herself to be free once more. She had seen the look in Captain Flint’s eyes when she had met them as he stood there on the deck, and the sight had brought a smile to her face, her entire being suddenly feeling as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. They were alive - they were both alive, she and John, and there was the man responsible - the man who had come for her, against all odds. The man who had just handed them their first true victory in this war, and she could not help the smile that spread over her face, only increasing when Flint met her eyes and nodded, solemn and yet with just a hint of pride in it that straightened his spine and curled the corner of his mouth upward. She had left his ship in good spirits, her optimism getting the best of her as she stood at the rail, the wind playing in her hair, already planning the future._

_“Good thing they patched it up,” one of the sailors near her said, and she turned, confused. Her world was complete, her day getting better by the hour - what was this man talking about?_

_“Patched what up?” she asked, and the sailor turned to look at her._

_“Their little tiff before we took the Governor’s ship. Glad to see it done.”_

_She frowned. This was news to her - she had heard little from the Governor during his brief conversations with her, although she recalled the conversation, if it could be called that, with Billy Bones, and wondered what had occurred during her absence._

_“Who was fighting?”_

_“Flint n’ Silver,” the sailor answered. “They didn’t tell you, Ma’am?”_

_“No,” she answered. She turned to the older man, a frown knitting her brow. “They argued?”_

_“Aye. Something awful, from the sounds of it. S’ the reason they were on th’ island when the Walrus went up. Hate to be in Mr. Silver’s shoes when it comes time to reckon the bill for it - Captain’s never been one to suffer defeat quiet-like. There’ll be more trouble out of it, mark my words.”_

_The unease that coiled in her belly grew, shifting, changing._

_“They argued - and the Walrus was destroyed as they did so?” Madi could not name the sensation that was starting from somewhere deep within her - dread, perhaps - but it did not sit well, finding its home deep down, the warning signal going off in her head sounding loud and clear, and she turned._

_“Mr. Featherstone!” She called the man’s name, and his bearded face appeared at the rail, the look on his face one of alarm._

_“Yes, ma’am?”_

_“Turn us around. I wish to return to the island - I believe we may be needed after all.”_

_“Ma’am?”_

_“Swiftly, please,” she ordered, and Rackham’s quartermaster stared. “I gave an order, Mr. Featherstone,” she reminded him sharply, and he shook himself._

_“Of course, ma’am,” he answered and she turned back toward the rail. She only hoped she did not arrive too late._

She wrings out the rag in a quick, efficient movement. Flint still has not moved, and for a moment, she wonders if he has fallen asleep. He is breathing evenly enough - the panting and wheezing of the first few hectic, terrifying moments when she had found him in chains are gone now, as is the slightly wild look he had worn when she had first boarded Silver’s ship.

“Captain,” she says gently. “If you are going to rest, it is probably best if you are clean. Will you let me do this for you?” He says nothing, but the green eyes move toward her and then to the rag. He looks at her for a moment as if she might, just possibly, turn out to be brandishing a cutlass in the other hand, and she makes a point of standing, silent, waiting patiently, not moving toward him a single inch until at last his bearded chin rises and then dips sharply - permission, the only sort she is likely to receive tonight, given what he has been through. He has hardly uttered a complete sentence since she arrived, save for a muffled, half-rasping “Thank God” when she first arrived that she is willing to put down to relief and fatigue. Both are evident in his frame as she comes closer, slowly, steadily, and stands at his side, taking the map from his fingers carefully. She has faced this sort of behavior before - it is hardly the first time, but the others have been newly freed slaves, sent to the island by her father or escaped of their own accord and come to the island to live new lives as free men. To see it from Flint - Madi squeezes the rag involuntarily and water trickles down Flint’s cheek, red and brown-black in equal measure, and he startles as the water hits his exposed collarbone. His shirt is a mess - torn at the collar, covered in debris and dried blood, and she wonders grimly just how hard he had fought not to be placed in those chains in the first place. How hard he had fought for his freedom.

“Do not hesitate to tell me if this begins to hurt,” she murmurs softly, as she begins to dab at the mess on his face, carefully cleaning it away bit by bit. He does not relax - not really, but he does close his eyes, taking them off of her for an instant, and she has been around enough abused, frightened, exhausted men to know that it is a gesture of trust rather than a function of that exhaustion. She smooths the rag carefully over his beard, over the line of his jaw and down his neck, careful to remove all trace of his nightmarish day from his skin, and he does not say a word, not one, still lost in whatever place his mind has gone to. She moves to his hands when his face and head are clean again, and she winces at the split knuckles and the equally split fingernail he has sustained somewhere in his attempts to free himself from Silver’s control. He has been fighting, she realizes, all day long, and she cannot quite help recalling the single indication she has had of what is roiling beneath the surface of him - the look of rage and pain and unthinking panic on his face as Israel Hands had attempted to fight his way out of her men’s control toward Madi herself.

_The fighting was over in a bare instant. One moment, men were reaching for their guns, and Israel Hands was barreling his way toward her, unstoppable, his face twisted in… contempt? Anger? Both? She was not sure, but the terror that had gone through her in that moment was paralyzing, rooting her in place, her mind reaching for solutions and finding none. Silver had shouted - an order to stop, perhaps - and then Flint had stepped forward, the motion smooth despite his fatigue, his arms raising and then lowering on either side of Hands’ head, his own face twisted into a snarl to match the other man’s. The chains that still hung between his arms snapped tight around Hands’ neck, and the big man choked, arrested in his course of action, suddenly gasping and clawing at the iron links, but Flint did not relent, one knee dug into the berserker’s back, holding the chains in place and not letting go until the other red-head had begun to turn blue in the face. There was a sudden, awful quiet, the sound of men reaching for weapons replaced by the horrible gasping and wheezing and then - silence._

_“Enough.” The word came from Silver, who stood, arms held on either side by her men, his eyes fixed on Flint as if realizing something for the first time. “That’s enough.” His men looked to him, and he shook his head. “Let them take him,” he ordered, and she took a deep breath, anger rising in her again at the tone of authority in his voice._

_“Take Mr. Silver and his men below,” she ordered. “And gag him.” He had thrown her a look of something like surprise and hurt, but she did not care, her attention now focused on the man still standing, panting for breath, his eyes slightly unfocused and his hands starting to shake with the effort he was still expending to strangle a dead man. She had gone to him then - had dismissed her bodyguard, who had jumped in front of her, and gone to Flint, walking past the newly-created corpse to touch his arm._

_“Captain?” she’d said gently. “You can let go now. Thank you, for protecting me.” He’d looked at her as if she had just spoken Greek (or perhaps not - she has seen him read Homer in the original Greek, as she herself does. Ashanti, then - she does not think he’s picked up any of that from her people yet). “You are safe,” Madi had murmured, and seen tremors begin in his arms. “Let me help you out of those.” She had held out a hand, expecting one of her people to have found the key for the shackles by now, and been proven right when the small piece of metal was handed to her, having been taken presumably out of Silver’s pocket. She moved forward, and saw the trembling spread, slowly travelling to all of him. She unlocked the first shackle, releasing Hands’ body in the process, and then grasped hold of Flint’s arm, pulling him toward her, her arms wrapping around his body. He stood, shivering and shaking, and she felt his free arm come up to touch her back even as she handed the key to the shackles to her waiting guard, who finished the task of releasing him from his bonds._

_“Come,” she said, pulling away gently, her hand remaining on his arm. “Come with me. You need rest, and food.”_

_Flint blinked, and then looked down at himself - at the filth that covered the front of his shirt, and the bits of it that had transferred to Madi as she held him. He swallowed hard, and then nodded._

_“You are with me,” she instructed Mǎnu and Afúom. “No one enters the cabin without my leave.” She squeezed Flint’s arm with the hand that still rested on it and then turned, leaving the deck behind and resisting the urge to clench her fists in her skirt or betray any of the tension that still twisted her muscles into knots._

“If you remove your shirt, I will have someone mend it,” she tells him quietly when she’s finished bandaging his knuckles. “I would offer to find you another but I doubt there is a spare to be found on the ship.” He is beginning to relax a fraction, Madi notes - his shoulders are no longer bunched beneath the material of his current shirt and the look in his eyes has gone from haunted betrayal to something more closely resembling ordinary fatigue, although there is nothing ordinary in what he has done today. He blinks at her, and then straightens, his arms moving to grab at the neck of the shirt, and she watches as he drags it off of himself, slowly, the motion looking quite as exhausting as anything she can imagine. He makes an attempt to hand it to her, his arm shaking as he does so, and she takes it before it can drop to the floor. In doing so, she cannot help but let her eyes roam over his torso - over the bruises still forming on it, and the scars that cross his chest, and the blood that has trickled down from the wounds on his head. Madi releases a slow breath. She is going, she thinks fiercely, to have John Silver’s head for this - for all of this, but mostly for the way that Flint looks at her, as if she might just possibly be his only remaining tether to a world that does not want him dead and in the ground or worse. She crosses the cabin to the small pitcher of water standing on the table, and pours out another measure in the wash basin. She wrings out the rag again, for approximately the third time, and brings the newly rinsed piece of cloth back to Flint, who reaches out and takes hold of it.

“I can do the rest,” he says quietly, his voice rough with exhaustion. “I won’t -” He stops, and his face twitches, something passing over it that she cannot name. “I can take it from here,” he finishes, and she feels something in her break at his tone - at the defeated, half-broken shell of a man she sees before her instead of her fierce general and friend. She cannot help but reach out, her hand seeking his shoulder, coming to rest against the only bit of it that is not covered in bruises. She does not squeeze it in reassurance, simply lets it rest there.

"You do not have to do everything by yourself,” she says simply.

“Today would seem to suggest otherwise.” The tone of Flint’s voice is bitter, irony wrapped in genuine, weary certainty, and she shakes her head.

"No,” Madi answers, her hand still resting on Flint’s shoulder. “No. His betrayal is not mine - will _never_ be mine. He made his choices, and he tried to make ours, but our choices are not his to make. I would rather die myself than consign another man to the fate he intended for you, and I _will_ die before I ever allow myself to start solving problems the way that sneaking, underhanded _coward_ has -” She stops, and Flint looks up at her, his green eyes gone a little wide at the venom in her voice. She closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath, and then opens them again. “You are safe, here, with me,” she finishes. “Whatever he has done -”

“I should have expected it.” He cuts her off, and she looks at him, surprised by the interruption.

“It’s not the first time,” he explains, and her gaze softens, understanding washing over her. Silver has told her of this - of the tragedy that made Captain Flint. Somehow she has not connected that tragedy to this - to the events of today, but of course they are similar - startlingly so, in fact.

“London,” she says, “and the loss of your Lord Hamilton. Is this how it was then, too?”

Flint frowns.

“He told you?” he asks, and she nods.

“Before we left to take Nassau. I’m sorry,” she answers. “I did not ask him. He - wanted me to trust you, or at least to stop regarding you as a threat.”

Flint’s mouth curls up at the corners but there is nothing of gladness or mirth in the gesture.

“I’d say it worked,” he says, the self-deprecation in his voice a biting, sharp thing.

She shakes her head.  

“No,” she admits, and he frowns. She can see the thoughts swirling in his head - how he thinks she now perceives him, based on - what? Flint has lived among pirates who care no more about his preferences in lovers than they do about anything else for ten years - surely he has learned by now that such things do not matter, and yet he sits, awaiting condemnation.

She has none to offer.

“It was not he who convinced me,” she clarifies. “That was your doing.” He starts, surprised, and she smiles. “ _Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our deeds_.” The quote is from Cervantes, and he obviously recognizes this one too. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wonders just how widely read the Captain is - one day, she intends to find out. “Your deeds,” she tells him quietly. “Not his words.”

“My deeds,” he repeats. He snorts, bitterness passing over his face. “It seems I can do nothing so great that another cannot claim it as their own and send me away. And every time I allow them to do it. Every _time_ I -”

Madi can take no more. She takes hold of his hand, flipping it over in her own to show the abrasions on it. She holds it up, where he can see it, her thumb positioned strategically between two sets of cuts.

“It does not seem to me that you _allowed_ anything,” she says sharply. “You were exhausted. You _are_ exhausted, and the timing of his actions -” She shakes her head. “They were as strategic as anything else he has ever done. Captain -”

An odd expression flits across his face, and she stops. 

“James," he murmurs, and she starts, surprised. "My name is James.” The words come out of him with more energy than anything else he has said tonight, and she pauses. “I’m not a captain of anything, at the moment,” he continues. “I would like -” He swallows hard, and when he looks up at her, there is something lost in his eyes. “It would please me to hear it used again,” he says, and the words are tinged with longing and sorrow and a hundred other emotions she cannot name. 

Madi resists the urge to kneel and wrap her arms around him again, just barely. Instead, she swallows hard against the lump that has risen in her throat - against giving in and thus startling him. She thinks she knows what is behind this request - the horrifying loneliness he must be feeling at the moment, for she feels some of it herself. It is a desire to be known by someone - called familiarly by _someone,_  and she cannot deny it to him in this moment.

“I will,” she answers. “James - you need rest. As your friend -” She says the words, and watches as something unnameable flickers across his face - a hint of melancholy, perhaps, drawing his brows together, concern resting on them like a cloud on the horizon.

“He told me I would be your end,” he murmurs, and Madi inhales sharply.

“What did he say?” she asks, and Flint shakes his head.

“He said it, when this all began - when I told him about Thomas,” he elaborates. “A pattern is a pattern and only a fool ignores it because he does not care for the implications. He feared the pattern he saw as it relates to you - that you would be the next to fall victim to it. To knowing me.” He looks down, swallowing hard, shoulders hunched once more, and Madi feels a cold, horrible sickness spread through her. He has been told, she realizes, that it is his fault. That this - horror that he has gone through - is because of him, and she does not have to ask what he means when he says He. John - no. Not _John_ anymore - not since he has done this. _Silver_ has told him this.

"He said this,” she repeats softly. She must be certain. “He spoke of - Mrs. Barlow. Of Thomas Hamilton.” Flint nods silently, and she feels rage wash over her - settle in her bones, clenching one hand and sending a chill running down her spine.

“He - had noted that they both died in direct consequence of becoming closer to me,” Flint says. “That their deaths might have been avoided if -”

“And you believed him?” The question comes out in a tone she barely recognizes from herself. It is her mother’s tone - her mother when she is dealing out justice for those who have been wronged. Her mother, she now realizes, when she is so angry that she can barely speak and yet knows she must, to comfort those who have suffered injustice over and over again, time after time. She can feel herself straighten, and when she speaks again, the trembling has gone from her hands. She is calm. Furious - and calm.

“This,” Madi tells him, her voice even, her tone uncompromising, “was not your fault. These people - your family - would they be pleased to see their decisions dismissed? To see their sacrifices made meaningless in this way?” Flint looks up at her, and she sees the startled expression on his face - the way he draws away.

“If they had never known me -” he starts, and she shakes her head.

“I did not know them,” she says, “but I know this. They were good people. They cared about the way the world should be, and if you had never come into their lives, still they would have found a way to get into trouble, because they cared for others more than for themselves. Including you. There has been more than enough taking away of choices today - do not make the same mistake he did by taking their choices from them.”

Flint looks at her, and now the look on his face has shifted - the misery has not gone, exactly, but it has taken on a wistful air. There is a wrinkle that has appeared on his forehead - one that she has not seen before now, formed by his brows as they come together, his mouth turning upward just a little.

“He’d have loved to have met you,” he says, and it is her turn to frown. “Thomas, I mean,” he clarifies. “England would never have known what hit her if the two of you had talked. You even share his taste in books. He would -” He stops, his voice cracking, and he shakes his head.

“What is it?” Madi asks, and he sighs.

“You know, for a moment, I almost believed him,” he says, so quietly she almost does not hear him.

“Believed him?”

There is silence for a moment, and she almost believes that he will not explain. There is a war raging in his eyes when he lifts them to look at her, and his voice is barely more than a whisper.

“He said - he told me that Thomas was alive.”

She starts, surprised.

“He told you he was alive?” she asks, and Flint nods.

“Imprisoned, or so he claimed, in the same place to which he intended to send me,” he says, the words coming out of him almost listlessly at first, gaining strength the more he speaks. “He said it and just for a moment I - he knows. He knows what I would do - what I would _give_ to have him back, and he still said it. And I -”

“You wanted to believe him.”

Flint winces.

“That hammer-wielding animal was sitting on me at the time,” he admits. “I started to throw him off and Silver -” He stops. “It doesn’t matter,” he grinds out and it is a lie, but she knows why he must tell it to her and to himself.  “He was lying so that I would go with him quietly. If you hadn’t come back -”

He stops himself, closing his eyes, brows knitting together again, and if Madi were not in the room she thinks he might curl in on himself - might be weeping by now, and she is not sure how he has kept from doing it all this time. A shiver runs down his spine once more, and Madi allows the hand that is still on James’ shoulder to squeeze just slightly. He is cold, she realizes - shivering not just from being tired or from realizing just how close they have both come to a horror she can scarcely comprehend even now but because the sun has gone down. They are at sea and he is still sitting, half-dressed with nothing between half of him and the cool air that is beginning to seep in under the doors and through the windows behind them. This conversation is at its end - as is what energy he had left. Gently, she takes the rag from him and completes the task of washing the blood off his chest, then wraps an arm around his shoulders, helping him to rise and stumble toward the hammock hanging nearby.

“Sleep,” Madi advises. “No one is going to send you away. I will kill the next man who tries.” He mumbles something she doesn’t quite catch - _I’d like to see that_ , perhaps, and then he is settling in, finding a position that approaches comfort with all the bruising on his torso. She takes Captain Rackham’s coat from a nearby chair and drapes it over him, her mouth curving at the corners of its own volition when he grabs hold of a corner of it and pulls it closer.


	2. Chapter 2

She is just exiting the cabin, map to the cache and Flint’s torn shirt in hand, when she hears Captain Rackham’s voice. 

“It would only be a moment,” he is trying to convince Mǎnu. “The merest instant of her time and then I will be on my way. If I might just -” Madi emerges onto the deck, and Rackham spots her immediately. “Ah. Your Highness. If I may, I would like to - is that my coat?” Rackham peers past her shoulder to Flint, and she closes the door firmly.

“Yes,” she tells him, watching the look of curiosity and consternation on his face. “Captain Flint has need of it.” Rackham’s face does something odd, and then it settles, resignation traveling through the whole long line of him. 

“Yes - of course he does,” he acknowledges. “Do tell him when you get the chance that it’s made of the finest linen from London and I would appreciate it if there were no blood stains on it when -”

“If you did not want blood on your coat then you should have considered a plan that would not cause him to bleed,” Madi answers. She turns to the two men guarding the door, both of whom turn their attention to her. “My instructions remain in place,” she tells them. “No one enters this cabin, and if Captain Flint leaves, I would like one of you to follow him, for his own protection, until we return home. I will take no more chances.” She turns back to Rackham, who is considering her, a look in his eyes that may be approval.

“You care for him,” he observes, and Madi raises her chin. 

“I do,” she answers. “Take that into account, Captain Rackham, before you move against him again.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Rackham answers. “I may be terribly unlucky in matters of commerce and politics, but I’m not an idiot. And speaking of politics -”

“The treaty will be presented to my mother,” she tells him. She knows what he is here to ask - has anticipated it since his babbling confession of his own part in the scheme that had nearly taken Flint from her. She does not like it - not any part of it, not when all she can hear at the thought of it is Rogers’ smug voice offering her the chance to betray her cause in exchange for Silver’s life. Still, she knows her duty - as, evidently, does Captain Rackham. 

“Then we are in agreement,” he answers. “You see? A moment, no more. If you will permit, I will retire below decks. Mr. Featherstone -”

“You and your men will remain above decks until daybreak,” Madi answers him. “When morning comes, you may go as far as the galley and no further. Consider yourself lucky, Captain Rackham, that I am allowing that much given what you have tried to do to us all.” 

“You don’t seriously think that we would -” Rackham starts incredulously, and Madi raises an eyebrow.

“Raise a mutiny if given the opportunity to creep about below decks? Cause a distraction so that you may carry out your original plan, having caused me to drop my guard by professing your ignorance of Mr. Silver’s true intentions? I have stopped making assumptions when it comes to pirates.” 

She turns away from Rackham, washing her hands of the conversation. She does not have time for this, or the patience. Flint may have had a bath, but Madi has not, and she still aches from her enforced inactivity for the past month. Some part of her cannot help but long for her bed, but that thought leads directly back to the reason that she cannot go to it yet - the reason she will not be sleeping for some time yet tonight. She gestures to one of the men standing on the quarterdeck, and he moves to join her. 

“Mr… Shaw,” she says, and the man straightens a little. 

“Yes Ma’am.”

“You will accompany Abeo and Iyawa to the island in a launch,” Madi orders. “You will camp on the shore for tonight, and in the morning you will go and retrieve the chest. Take this -” She hands him Flint’s map. “If you encounter trouble, my people know the signal.”

“Yes Ma’am.” The pirate turns, heading toward the launches, and she hears Rackham clear his throat behind her. She turns to face him and sees him raise one eyebrow. 

“What was that?” he asks, and she gives him a small, grim smile.

“I am obtaining now with loyalty what you could not obtain by force,” she answers. She savors the small moment of satisfaction - it is the only one she is likely to get any time soon, she knows. Her next conversation will not be nearly so pleasant. 

She takes a deep breath. Her next conversation is of a kind she has no experience with - not truly. She wants it so badly she could scream at every interruption, every task that lies between her and the hold and the man sitting in chains there. At the same time - Madi does not want this. She does not want to have to say any part of what she knows she must - does not want to face the hurt, or the fury, or the knowledge she now possesses of what John Silver is capable of. She wants to leave him there - to go back to the cabin, to look after Flint. She wants to go below decks and get drunk for perhaps the first time in her life, to drown her sorrows the way she knows that others would, and yet she cannot. Madi knows this, and knows too what her mother would have to say if she were here, and so she straightens, mentally girding herself. 

“You know, I’d have given several fingers for that kind of obedience when I was given charge of Nassau,” Rackham says, still nearby, and she turns her head to look at him. “Hundreds of men, a thousand Spanish dollars awaiting each one for a job well done, and not in a hundred years could I have expected that sort of… loyalty.” He gestures incomprehensibly toward her men as they prepare to leave the ship. “You’re frighteningly good at this, you know. I still don’t know how you do it - you and Flint. You give orders and men just -” He snaps his fingers. “Some men rule with fear, others with coin, but you two -” He shakes his head and stares past her, lost in thought for a brief instant. “One day I’d love to hear you explain it. Goodnight, your Highness. Do try not to wake anyone when you murder Mr. Silver.” 

He walks away, and Madi watches him leave. The sentiment is - not quite comforting, and yet she cannot help but feel buoyed at hearing it - strange though it is coming from a man who only hours ago had been preparing to aid her lover in betraying her utterly.

_ There was a red haze before her eyes and a roaring sound in her ears.  _

_ Men, she thought distantly, were often ridiculous when caught in the act of doing something they ought not to. Some froze. Some began to babble. And some -  _

_ John Silver stood in front of her, a look on his face that she could only call desperation. _

_ “This has to be,” he argued, his tone pleading. “Madi, think! If this war continues - if he remains to fuel it - what will our lives be? How long will it be before this war becomes a monster all its own? Are you going to let him -” _

_ The man John referred to knelt a few feet behind, and Madi had seldom seen anything more horrifying in her life than James Flint at that moment. He looked -  _

_ By all the gods, he looked as if he had been beaten half to death. There was a wound near the crown of his head that had bled profusely down the side of his face, and bruises were forming on the other cheek. One shoulder was nearly bared, revealing more damage, and the rest of him was covered in dirt, leaves clinging to him here and there. He had either fallen or been forced to his knees, hands shackled in front of him, a look in his eyes that she had never, ever wished to see there - half wild, gazing up at her as if she might possibly be some form of spirit made flesh, come to either save or damn him, none too certain which way the decision would go. _

_ “Captain Flint,” she raised her voice, “you are in need of assistance, are you not?”  _

_ Silver’s men stepped forward, and Flint stared at her.  _

_ “He’s hardly in danger,” came another voice from behind Silver, and she looked to Jack Rackham, who stood, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “If you allow us to leave here - the plan was to transport him North. Mr. Silver assures me -” _

_ “He’s not to be harmed,” John confirmed. “There’s a place, near Spanish Florida. Once we get him there -” _

_ “What sort of place? You say you do not intend to harm him - why then do you need chains to transport him there? Why did you send me away so that I would not see it?”  _

_ “They’re only there until we arrive at the plantation -”  _

_ “A  _ _ plantation _ _?”  _

_ She could hardly breathe. The very word - _

_ “The deal is for Captain Flint to disappear,” Rackham said. “Peacefully and without doing him permanent damage. Once that’s happened, a treaty will be offered to your people. They will be safe, and we -”  _

_ “A plantation,” she repeated. She could not hear Rackham’s babbling - not truly. The roaring in her ears had increased, and she found herself staring at John - at his blue eyes as he lied to her, over and over again, with her friend in chains behind him.  _

_ “He’ll be safe there,” John cajoled. “Happy, even. It’s not as if -” _

_ “Wait a moment,” Rackham said suddenly.  _

_ His posture had changed - the unease in his stance changed to full-blown alarm, his dark eyes suddenly narrowed. She had never truly understood how Jack Rackham could be accounted a force to be reckoned with, but in that moment, there was, she thought, a hint of the man that Rogers and his ilk felt was no less dangerous than any other pirate.  _

_ “‘He’ll be happy there?’” he quoted. “ Have I missed something, or did I hear you correctly when you implied that Captain Flint would not, in fact, be leaving the plantation soon after arriving?” _

_ John looked to Rackham, and Madi saw the moment when his eyes widened a fraction. _

_ “When we discussed things earlier -” he started, and Rackham frowned, his hand suddenly going to rest on the hilt of his sword.  _

_ “The idea,” he said slowly, “was to give Captain Flint what he wanted and then let him fade away - out of our hair, so to speak.” His gaze darted to the side as Flint began to struggle again - as his chains rattled and he cursed. _

_ “Fuck you, you -”  _

_ One of John’s men started to raise his hand, and Madi’s gaze skewered him in mid-downswing. _

_ “Touch him,” she snapped, “and I will pin you halfway up the foremast by that hand.”  _

_ Rackham looked between her, Flint, and Silver, understanding slowly dawning on his face.  _

_ “I’ll help,” he added, nodding at the man. “Mr. Silver - I think it’s time you and I had a little chat. I can’t say I appreciate being kept in the dark - in fact I’m inclined to question this whole endeavor.”  _

_ “An hour ago -” John started. _

_ “An hour ago, you were in the process of attempting to dupe me into betraying the memory of a man I respected above all others. Charles Vane would roll in his grave if he could see this - any of this. I came here intending to end this for my partner - told her I’d stopped acting for a dead man and that may be so but provided there is an afterlife, I would prefer it if Charles didn’t welcome me to it by kicking me all the way to Hades for becoming a slaver. Now -” _

_ “You were going to sell him?” Afúom asked. The older man was right behind Madi now, his gaze fixed on John, one hand clutching the hilt of a sword. “You tell our people you intend to see to our welfare, and you would do this? How are you any better than the British? Or the Spanish? You would see -” _

_ Madi raised a hand. _

_ “That is enough.” She had heard enough - had seen more than enough. “Restrain them. All of Mr. Silver’s people. Captain Rackham -”  _

_ “Madi, I swear, it isn’t what you think. It’s not the kind of plantation you’re thinking of. Once he gets there he won’t want to leave,” Silver pled. “Madi - my God, I never intended for him to be miserable. I sent -” _

_ Inside her head, Madi could hear the sound of something shattering, the sound of everything in her crying out at the words. The noise was deafening, and the feeling that swept over her - quite suddenly everything in her body ached, as if her heart had broken and taken her other organs with it.  _

_ “You would do this?” she asked, her voice a whisper. John stared at her, desperation in his eyes. _

_ “It’s not a slave plantation. It’s a work camp, used by certain families in London -” he started to repeat, and something exploded right next to her head - it must have, for the pressure she felt suddenly between her ears was horrifying. She blinked, the tears rising to her eyes, and she stared at him, heedless of the moisture gathering. _

_ “You would bring him there in shackles, keep him there with armed guards, force him to work under their supervision, and never let him leave. I see no difference.”  _

_ “I would end this war! I would see him live out the rest of his days -” _

_ “You would enslave him!” Her voice cracked along with her composure, and she gestured angrily. “Look at him! Look at the man you are betraying!”  _

_ “You don’t know what else is there. You don’t know -”  _

_ Flint began to struggle harder, finding some reserve of energy in himself as he fought to rise. _

_ “I’ll fucking kill you myself,” he ground out. “Don’t you even - don’t you fucking dare say it again -” _

_ Madi gestured to her men.  _

_ “I don’t want to hear any more of your excuses. Take them to the hold, and release Captain Flint.” The pirates began to shift - began to look around amongst themselves, as Afúom began to move toward Flint, reaching for Flint’s hands to help him to his feet. _

_ “Captain?” one of Rackham’s men asked, and he nodded.  _

_ “Restrain them. Do as she says. Now!”  His people began to move toward Silver. _

_ “Madi - don’t,” he pled. “This war can’t go on forever. You’ll be killed -” _

_ Madi turned away. She could not listen - not anymore.  _

Madi shakes her head. She still cannot believe the absolute nerve of Silver - the twisted horror that was his plan for his friend. She cannot reconcile it with the man she spent so many nights sleeping beside - the man she had thought loved her as fiercely and as completely as she did him. That he could do such a thing -

She shivers. It requires an answer. More than that - she needs to see him. To see the lie on his face once more - to convince herself that the funeral beat in her heart must continue unabated, that this is truly happening. And - 

She has come so very far from her island. She has fought the first battles of a war. She has lost friends - men she has known since childhood. She will not turn back now from what she has become - what she knows herself to be. She has questions - ones that she will see answered, whether she likes those answers or not. She heads below decks with resolute steps, ignoring the part of her that is wailing like a child. She cannot turn away from this - cannot ignore it.

The hold is dark. That feels appropriate somehow - a dark night for a dark discussion. She travels through the ship, heading downward, and she cannot help the feeling of wrongness it creates. She should not be here. John should not be here. They should all be above decks, in Flint’s cabin. This ship should not be the Lion - they should all still be aboard the Walrus, and there should be a night of discussion and planning ahead of them. She should be about to rejoin the men that have become so important to her, and instead -

She stops in front of the door to the makeshift cell that Silver has been relegated to. She takes a deep breath for courage, and then opens the door, the keys feeling unfamiliar in her hands as she turns them in the lock. She steps inside carefully, the lantern in her hand illuminating the small space.

Silver sits against the far wall. His curls have fallen into his face and his crutch is missing - held, she knows, by one of her guards to prevent Silver from using it as a weapon. Still, he tries to struggle upright when she enters the cell, making sounds past the spit-soaked gag in his mouth. She feels a vicious thrill of satisfaction at seeing the chagrin that flashes through his eyes, and at noting his discomfort. Good, some petty part of her mutters. He should suffer - he should suffer as James has. She cannot quite make out the words he tries to utter, but she can see the frustration that plays across his face at being unable to use his favorite part of his arsenal. She ruthlessly ignores the part of her that wants to murder someone for the pain on his face - the part of her that wants to relent. 

“Your plan,” she says, “has failed. The cache is about to be retrieved from the island. It will be delivered back to the camp, along with Captain Flint - and you. You will face judgment before my people for what you have done.” 

He shifts, and she turns away. This - this is harder than she could have imagined. She wants to go to him. She wants to brush the hair out of his face, to take the gag from his mouth - 

She wants to wrap her hands around his neck and squeeze. 

“My mother will be waiting,” she tells him. It is a thought she has had frequently over the past month - has imagined her mother, frightened, grieving, bereft of both husband and daughter. The thought is enough to help stoke her anger. “But for you, I might be home in a few days. But for you, there would be no need to stay here another night - to prolong her worry.” 

There is, she thinks, something soothing in the silence here. The creaking of the ship fills the hold - a gentle sound that soothes the anger that swells within her.

She does not want to be soothed. She steps forward, and in one motion, unties the gag, freeing Silver’s mouth. He shakes his head, dislodging the cloth gag further, and then croaks -

“Madi. For God’s sake -”

She cannot breathe. Her chest hurts at the sound of him - at his very presence, and the roaring in her ears has started again, not rage this time but pain. The sound of his voice  _ hurts  _ \- pierces directly through her and gods above, below, and around her she cannot  _ do  _ this. Not now. Not tonight.

No. She has to do this. She must. She is not a girl anymore. 

“Silence.” The word passes her lips, and Silver stops cold.

“You ungagged me,” he points out, and oh, she could kill him for that sentence alone. 

“I did not do it so that you could wag your tongue,” she answers. “I did not come here to discuss what has happened today. I did not come here to talk about -” She stops, takes a deep breath. 

“You and I are through,” she tells him, and she means every horrible, hard, painful word of it. She is done here - done with his lies, done with his manipulations, done - 

She will not think of his hands on her, of his comforting presence when she thought that he loved her. She will not think of that - she cannot. She straightens, but Silver has already caught the edge of her mood - has already seen the pain in her eyes. She can see the look on his face - stricken, his blue eyes focused on her face. His hands twitch in their shackles, and he looks at her, helpless - bereft.

“I never wanted to hurt you.” his voice cuts through the gloom of the cell, soft and pleading.

“You did.” Her voice is harsh, roughened with emotion.

“I didn’t see another choice. I didn’t want this - you must believe me about that. I didn’t want -”

“I did not want to spend a month in a cell,” she snaps. “I did not want to put those who love me through pain and fear and doubt. I did not want Kofi to die, but these things I endured. For my people! For what I believe in.” 

“I couldn’t bear it.” Silver’s voice is still filled with agony, and she turns to him, surprised. “I couldn’t bear the thought of it,” he continues. “This war -”

“This war was my choice! I was willing to do anything - make any sacrifice. I thought you understood that - understood me.” 

“And when it went on and on for years, with no end in sight and no progress achieved - what then?” Silver’s voice has risen, and he struggles to rise with it, his bound hands impeding him as surely as the missing leg. “When your war has become a nightmare that takes others from their homes - from their families? When you and Flint are dead and the only one left fighting an unwinnable war is me - what then? You would fight this war and you would leave me to grieve you as if -” 

“This is not about  _ us _ ! This is not about  _ you!” _ The words burst out of her, her voice raised. She has been trained not to do this. She has learned, over and over again, but now, here, she is shouting, her anger and pain too much to be confined. “There are people out there now living in slavery - men and women and children who will be separated from their families not by my war but by men of your race who see them as property! Husbands and wives, brothers, and sisters, and grandmothers who will never know freedom because men like you would rather put your own comfort above their lives! You would put my life - my  _ safety  _ above theirs and that is  _ not _ my role to play!”

She is panting for breath, now, her anger stealing the air from her lungs. 

“Your job is not to free every slave in the New World.” Silver’s eyes, blazing with fury, met hers now. “My God, Madi! Do you know who you sound like? What the hell ever happened to you mistrusting him? When did you start to listen to him so closely? Why would you -” 

She holds up a hand. It is a gesture she uses almost unconsciously - one meant to halt conversation, but this time he is not listening.

“No,” he says. “I’m not going to stop until you see - until you hear me! I care about you, damn it, and I won’t sit back while you go running to your death with him right behind you!” He is struggling now, rattling his chains, trying to drag himself up from the floor with everything he has. “You may not like my plans - hell, I’m not sure that I like them, but I created them so that you would have the luxury of hating me for years to come if that’s what you want. You may be willing to die for this war, but I’m not, and I’m not willing to watch while you throw your life away for a victory that will never come! I’m not willing to be left behind, alone with this thing that has eaten up both our lives ever since Billy  _ fucking  _ saddled me with it! My god, do you have any idea how heavy it has become? How tired I am of -” 

“You truly heard nothing, did you, when I told you that bearing the crown meant the end of being the one that is tended to.” 

Her voice is flat. Somewhere during Silver’s rant, she thinks, something has broken in her. Somewhere, the rage has run flat - anger at what he has done turned to disbelief and disbelief turned to something that she now recognizes as disgust. 

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not a King,” Silver snaps. “I never wanted the damned crown - any crown. Don’t try to act as if I should accept one, either - this isn’t my war and it never has been.” 

“What were you planning to do if we married?” 

The question stops him - causes his eyes to widen. 

“If we married?” he asks, and she looks down at him, anger forming a hard, heavy knot in her chest. 

“If we had married, what do you think you would have done?” she asks again. “I am my mother’s heir. What life did you see for us, if it did not include bearing the weight of a throne? Of a people?” 

“I - suppose I hadn’t really considered it,” he answers, and she feels something in her twist at the words. “If we were to marry -” He looks at her with astonished eyes. “I don’t know,” he confesses, and she nods.

“I know,” she answers. “I did not understand Captain Flint at first. I did not trust him for the same reason that I do not trust any of you. He was a man. He was white, and he made promises I did not think he could keep. Promises I did not think he truly meant. Do you know what convinced me?” 

Silver shakes his head - and Madi leans in, bending at the waist, her head closer now to his.

“The day we thought you died in the harbor. You went under. Do you recall?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Of course I do. It was -”

“That day,” she tells him, her voice still low and somehow disconnected from her. “That day, Captain Flint proved himself to me. Do you know how?”

Silver shakes his head again, and she searches his eyes. He truly does not know, she thinks - does not understand. 

“He left you there,” she answers, and watches something that she would swear is old grief, old anger flash through his eyes. “You went under the surface of the water. We watched it happen - and I saw the moment that Flint knew. I saw him start to come after you - and I also saw the moment he knew that he could not. In  _ that _ moment when he might have proven to me once and for all that pirates are  _ not _ to be trusted - in a moment where he wanted more than anything to act in his own interest -” She shook her head. “I watched that moment dawn and I saw the instant when he put aside his own desires to see to those around him. It is  _ why _ I trust him - why I  _ listen _ to him. And why I will never call you husband.” 

It is not the entire story. The moment in the harbor was the start, certainly. It was the first moment she had considered that perhaps - just perhaps - Captain Flint had meant what he said. She had stood on the beach with him, wondering - contemplating, even as she hoped and waited and prayed for Silver to be among those escaping the wreckage. “He is my friend, too,” James had said, and she had understood - truly understood exactly what he meant, why he was standing on the beach and not in the water, coming in on a launch himself. Even then, she had not been entirely convinced, but Silver does not need to know that. This is close enough to the heart of the matter - to the divide that has opened between them now. It is all she is willing to give him - all the more ammunition she is willing to cede. She turns, taking the lantern from where she has hung it on the hook near the door. She had come here for the answer to a question. It is an answer, she realizes, that she no longer needs. She has everything she needs - even if her heart feels as if it has been reduced to ash. Still - she knows someone else who shares her pain - someone asleep several decks above her. He is currently wounded, heartbroken, without a home to call his own, and if she can remedy any part of that loss, she intends to do so. There is, however, one question left to ask. She turns back to Silver, who sits, visibly searching for words.

“Madi -” he starts, and she kneels down, bringing the lantern close to his face.

“I loved you,” she tells him, quietly. The words, miraculously, stun him to silence for a moment - a moment that she uses to her own best advantage. “If you do not understand why I am angry yet, then know that. I loved you. If you are still capable of acting from love instead of fear, you will answer me honestly.” 

He stares at her, and then swallows.

“Ask,” he answers, and she stares into his eyes. She has missed the lie in his voice before. She has been a fool. Not anymore. This time, she will look into his eyes and see either truth or falsehood.

“How long have you known that Thomas Hamilton is alive?” 

He sits, silent. There is a war going on in his eyes - she can see it now, see the cannon-fire, almost, and she waits. 

“A message arrived,” he finally croaks out, “three days before the Spanish arrived. I sent my man North just before we agreed to trade Flint for the cache.” There is no lie in his eyes. He is weary, and desperate, and even frightened, but not lying - for once. 

“All that time,” she whispers, and he nods. 

“I first came up with the idea after talking to Max. She told me of the place. I -”

“You knew, and you did nothing to help him - to end their pain. You knew, and you  _ said nothing _ .”

“I saw no other way of forcing him to relent.” 

The words hit her like a hammer to the chest, and she closes her eyes. 

“You sold him,” she whispers, and the silence is deafening. 

“I won’t apologize for caring enough for you to do this,” Silver tells her finally, his voice low and rough and tired. “I know you hate me. I know you think I’m some kind of monster, but whatever I am, I did this so that you and I could have a future. So that there would still be somewhere in the world that wasn’t on fire by the time this was through. I did it for us.”

“I know,” she tells him, “and I don’t care.” She stands, and with those words, she turns on her heel, heading for the captain’s cabin. She has her answers - and they do not lie here, in this cell. They never have.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lovely Bean has made gifs to go with this fic, and two of them go with this chapter. Here they are!
> 
> https://media.giphy.com/media/ti7MEttaxmrMk/giphy.gif
> 
> https://media.giphy.com/media/240NHEc9v7QDC/giphy.gif

James wakes from a nightmare about three hours after settling into a hammock with Jack Rackham’s coat tucked around him, sitting bolt upright from a sound sleep, gasping for air, a shout caught in his throat.

It takes him a moment to orient himself. The cabin is strange, the smell of it foreign, the furniture in it different enough in the dark to startle him until he recalls belatedly where he is. This is not the Walrus. The lack of a cannon sitting stowed in its usual (highly inconvenient, perilously close to his head) position proves it, as does the closeness of the space. This is not his cabin unless he takes into account the nature of Madi's impromptu assumption of command and her firm instructions to install him here as if he were the new owner. He recalls, through the fog surrounding his abrupt salvation, the way she took over the ship as if she had been doing so her entire life. If she continues in this vein, she might, he thinks briefly, just possibly make an acceptable pirate someday. Still, Madi is no sailor, which means -

He has no idea who is captaining the ship. Under any other circumstances, that thought would worry him. He has not and probably will never so completely shake off his Navy training as to fail to wonder who is in command, or to feel the itch to do a quick tour of the ship to make certain things are running smoothly, but tonight, he cannot bring himself to move or to pay anything close to the requisite attention. He can tell that they are underway to somewhere. By the sighing and creaking of the hull, they are making good time - he knows the sound of a ship under full sail, the way that the deck sways underfoot and the feeling in the air when they've caught the wind. Someone halfway competent, then - it is the only thought that matters at present, for the simple reason that he is too tired to parse any other thought. Someone is not him and he does not want it to be - not now. At present -

He shudders. He is still coming down off the adrenaline rush from the nightmare. The feeling is familiar - he's lived with them for years, this is just the latest in a long line of them, no worse for all that the subject matter is a twist on a recent memory. Too recent, in fact - he can hear the first bell of the night’s watch ringing out, signaling that it has been approximately five hours since he was brought aboard this ship in chains. Since Madi rescued him.

He wipes a hand over his face. He is covered in a borrowed coat, on a ship that does not belong to him, surrounded by men who are not his own crew for the most part, and the men responsible for the entire state of affairs are sitting in the hold, chained. Just this morning he was the captain of a ship, with a crew full of loyal men, and tonight -

In the cold light of day, James thinks, he might be able to think about this in terms of strategy. What had gone wrong today. What had gone so desperately wrong in the past month as to lead to this day in the first place, but for right now, he cannot help but be pathetically grateful to find himself here, in this cabin, unshackled and free if not precisely comfortable. It had been far too close a thing - something the nightmare has reminded him of as if he needed it. As if the bruises and cuts and the memory of John Silver staring at him down the barrel of a gun were not all the reminder he could possibly need of what he has been through today. If not for Madi -

He does not want to think on it. He cannot force himself to do so - not when all of him cries out for rest and his battered, broken heart shies away from the very notion of examining the horror that has nearly befallen all of them today. It is too much, and he is too tired, but the three hours of sleep he has gotten are apparently all his mind requires to find the strength to continue tormenting him. He cannot get the memory of it out of his head - cannot stop hearing Silver’s voice, cannot unfeel the rage, or the betrayal, or the sheer, overwhelming despair that still courses through him. He cannot simply turn over and go back to sleep - not when he can still hear Silver’s voice saying the words that had stopped his heart beating in his chest for a moment. Not when -

 _Christ_ . James has never put much stock into praying, but thinking the word now feels far more like a prayer than it ever has before - the cry of a damned soul reaching out for mercy, perhaps, or merely a cry to his creator to cease tormenting him because he cannot - _cannot_ take any more and he no longer has any idea how to pick himself up off the ground and keep going. Not after this. Not after -

How in the hell is he supposed to continue with the sound of the worst lie he has ever been told still ringing in his ears, making his heart feel as if it might burst with the pain and the rage of this worst betrayal yet?

He has been so blind. Worse - the blindness has been willful, stubborn - tolerated not out of necessity but out of desperation. He has been desperate for someone, anyone, to reach out to, and in his desperation, he has reached out to a snake, hoping not to be bitten, and now has the audacity to feel betrayed when the damn serpent turns on him according to its nature and assists him, Cleopatra-like, in ending his miserable existence.

Damn John Silver to hell anyway, he thinks bitterly. The analogy he’s just created irritates him as much as anything else at the moment for its inaccuracy. A snake, unlike Silver, bites only when its life is directly threatened - when it has no choice, and perhaps Silver had felt it was so, but James simply cannot see where either he or Madi have created a situation which would make Silver so doubt their intentions toward him. He knows that if Thomas were here, he’d have torn the analogy to pieces in a second, and there - there is the rub, because there is one piece of Silver’s lies that James cannot dismiss. _Thomas is alive_ , he had said, and James had felt rage consume him. He had roared at Silver, knocked aside the gun in his hand and tried to kill him with his bare hands for uttering the words because _they could not be true._ They simply could not be - not after all this time, after all the things James has done to get to this point, not after what he has become -

He wants them to be true. God help him, but he wants them to be true more than he’s ever wanted anything in his entire life and at the same time he cannot bear the thought. He knows what he has become. He knows what he is, now, and to think that he has become this - thing, this creature of violence and darkness and pain in the name of a man who was never dead to begin with - in the name of a _lie_ -

The door creaks, and James looks up with a start to find Madi entering the cabin. There are tear tracks on her face, but she is composed, her expression as calm as it has ever been, and there is nothing agitated in her movements.

"You should be resting,” she tells him, her voice soft, and he shakes his head.

"You went to see him?" he asks, and she stiffens - answer enough, but she relaxes after a moment and turns back toward him from where she has been laying his mended shirt on a nearby chair.

"Yes," she answers. He cannot decipher the expression on her face - most likely due to the fog that fills his mind still, the rush from the nightmare slowly leaving him without having the decency to also allow him to sleep.

"Are you alright?" he asks, and she closes her eyes. She breathes out, short, and sharp.

"I am better than I might have been," she answers, and he gives her a look. "I will be well again," she amends, and he lets it go, knowing the feeling all too well.

"What did he have to say?" he asks, and Madi's mouth tightens.

"Little of consequence," she answers. She sits down on the table, her hand picking at the seam of her trousers. She’s changed, somewhere in the past few hours, he realizes - found a pirate to match her build and commandeered his spare clothing, perhaps, or something of the kind. And the way she stares at the table - at anything other than him -

“Madi,” he says wearily, “what did he say?” She looks up at him.

“The beginning of it you know. You have heard his justifications - his reasons for what he has done. You know them to be selfish, as do I. There can be no justifying what he has done. I will not allow it. But when I asked him about what he said to you - about the way in which he tried to manipulate you into going with him -”

A cold chill goes down his spine.

“Don’t -” he starts, and her brow furrows.

“James,” she says, and the sound of his name from her lips goes right through him. “Do you not wish to know about this of all things?”

“I -” he croaks. His breath is coming short again, and he closes his eyes. Mercifully, she allows him the space he needs to compose himself, and when he opens them again, he is relieved to find that he can speak. “It isn’t that I don’t wish to know,” he says. “It’s more complicated than that.” He runs a hand over his face, searching for the words. “I can’t,” he says finally. “I want to, but to find out -”

“It would be painful,” she says, understanding flashing through her eyes. “To know. To find out, whatever the outcome might be. You fear it.”

He nods.

“Yes,” he says simply. She waits - again, she waits, and he could embrace her for that alone - for her patience in the face of his reluctance to discuss this. “It’s been eleven years,” he says at last. “He lied. There is no other possible outcome here and yet I think on it and I -” He stops. “There was no body,” he says finally. “We received a letter. At the time I never questioned it - I knew the reputation of the place Thomas was sent to, what it could do to a man. I raged, and I wept, and I burned the letter, and now I find myself wanting to believe this fantasy because that letter came from a man I know to have been a liar. It’s killing me.” He knows what he says is true. Silver, he has begun to see, has lied about so many things - his name, his past, his intentions, his feelings - there is nothing about the man that he does not now doubt, including his words, and yet -

His mind conjures Thomas’ face, his voice, the memory of him, and James wants to weep with it. If he ever gets his hands on Long John Silver, he’s going to wring the man’s neck for waving this possibility in front of him - for even raising the question in his mind, and yet he cannot help but wonder. What he has told Madi is true. The letter they had been sent -

It had come from Peter Ashe, and God, what is it about James that seems to attract humanity’s scum-sucking leftovers? Ashe is another one that had lied with every breath he had ever taken, and what if this is yet another thing he had dissembled about? In his mind, he replays the bastard’s last moments. Wait, he had told James - wait for what? What could he possibly have thought might save his miserable life if not a revelation such as the one James is now torturing himself by contemplating? But then why had Alfred said nothing in the face of the same fate? Why -?

“If I sent someone to find out,” Madi asks softly, “would you want to know?”

He stares at her. He cannot answer her, he realizes - not honestly, or possibly even coherently. He has wanted Thomas back for so long - has missed his laugh, his touch, his calm approach to a problem, everything about him so many, many times, but to face the prospect now - to think that he may have been within James’ reach all this time - that Miranda may have died screaming in fury for _nothing_ -

The thought is horrifying, but it is one that will continue to occur to him, if he lets it - will haunt him in the darkest nights when he cannot make his mind stop turning over problems. He will wonder over and over again whether Thomas might even now be somewhere - whether he has, in his grief and arrogance and assurance that he is right, thrown away his last chance, no different than the man currently sitting locked in the hold. He will face Miranda’s eyes night after night, hear Thomas’ betrayed horror, begging to know why James has forsaken him, until he faces this, puts the demon to rest. He has spent the past ten years with cousins of this thought. He cannot bear an addition to their ranks of this magnitude.

Madi reaches out to take his hand, her skin warm against his.

“Where I could not be honest,” she quotes, “I never yet was valiant.” King Lear, James recognizes - one of the later acts. “If you do not know, you will never find rest.”

He nods. He knows how this will end, but she is right. If there is even the slightest possibility -

“Alright,” he agrees. The word feels heavy, weighted down with the potential consequences of the decision, but he knows he cannot refuse to make it - cannot take that chance. Madi squeezes the hand she’s holding and stands.

“I will make the arrangements,” she tells him. “I will -” She raises a hand to her mouth, covering a yawn, and James manages the edge of a smile.

“I’m not the only one that should be sleeping,” he tells her, and she shakes her head.

“No,” she admits. She looks every bit as tired as he feels, and he’s had several hours of sleep, albeit somewhat troubled, that she has not. “We will discuss this tomorrow,” she tells him. “I will be in the passenger cabin if you need anything. Good night.” He releases her hand, allowing her to move away, and attempts to settle back into his hammock, the bruises that have formed having finished becoming painful while he slept, or perhaps his mind has finally registered that they are there now that he is no longer being forced to fight for his life. He curses Hands and his… well, hands again and Silver and his damned lackeys, and turns over, wincing at the motion. As Madi reaches the door to the cabin, he sits up again.

“Madi,” he says quietly, and she stops, her hand on the latch. “Thank you.”

She smiles, and lets herself out of the cabin, the door clicking shut quietly behind her.


	4. Chapter 4

It is entirely too hot. 

The damned inconvenient thing about the New World, Jack Rackham thinks, is that it is so damned inconsistent. Go a few leagues in one direction and you’d be freezing your balls off, whereas at the southern end of the same damned coast, you’d be sweating like mad during the same season of the year - as he is presently, his neckcloth loosened to deal with the northern Florida heat and his hands beginning to slip on the reins once again. The horse drawing the cart he had come on nickers, and he gives the animal a frank gaze. 

“Yes, I know,” he mutters. “It’s hotter than hell out here, but if I’m not allowed to complain about it, neither are you.” 

The horse flicks its ear, and Jack rolls his eyes. Such, it appears, is his luck - an uppity horse and sweat in places better left unnamed along with dust from the road. Still - better this heat than Philadelphia’s cold and better the horse as company than the sullen pirate walking behind him or the damned humorless bastards that Flint and his new protector, the Maroon Princess have sent along as insurance.

_ “Remind me again why I should agree to this?”  _

_ The woman standing in front of him lifted an eyebrow.  _

_ “Because,” Madi said, “you have no other choice. You came here to end the war by killing my friend. That is not going to happen - now, or ever. You cannot kill me without dying yourself, and still your purpose would be left unfulfilled. You can either placate me, and in doing so, gain the good will of Captain Flint, or -”  _

_ “Or I can leg it so to speak back to Philadelphia and attempt to negotiate a new deal. Is there some reason -?”  _

_ “The reason,” a familiar, gravelly, exhausted-sounding voice came from behind him, “is standing right behind you.” He spun, and found James Flint standing there, one hand holding him up against the rail, the bags under his eyes more pronounced than Jack had ever seen them. He looked, Jack thought, like hell. And still -  _

_ “Forgive me,” Jack points out, “but I don’t find the thought of you coming at me in your present state all that intimidating. If you mean to threaten -” _

_ “Not me. Not directly.” Flint turned a fraction and gestured to the three men standing behind him, who stepped forward, eyes on him, hands at their sides, for all the world as if - _

_ “These men will be accompanying you,” Flint said, and Jack suddenly recalled where he had last seen all three before. “They came with us out of Nassau when the Spanish took it, and since they’re all mutineers, they have a vested interest in not being delivered to Philadelphia’s harbor. If you so much as attempt to give the order to turn North from your destination, one of them will slit your throat and then all three will see to it that your task is completed so as to stay in my good graces and earn a place among us. Do you understand?”  _

_ The three former redcoats all but saluted, and Jack turned back to Madi. _

_ “Has it occurred to you that allying yourself with him might just possibly turn out to be fighting fire with fire?” he complained, and Madi gave him an unimpressed look. _

_ “Do as he says, Captain Rackham, and I can promise you that the rewards will be no less impressive for you and yours than they might have been otherwise. Who knows - you may still get your wish if my people decide to accept your treaty.”  _

_ Flint gave a huff behind him, and Madi tilted her head, raising one eyebrow.  _

_ “You have something to add?” she asked, and he gave her a look.  _

_ “Remind me again why we’re allowing him to do this,” Flint asked, and Madi sighed. _

_ “You know well enough the reasons why,” she answered, and at Flint’s stubborn silence, she continued. “We have discussed this. I cannot afford to wait until we reach the camp to send that ship North without knowing if I will be able to do so once Julius learns of our return and of all that has happened here.” _

_ “This is still a bad idea.”  _

_ “You should still be resting,” she told him, disapproving, and he shook his head. _

_ “Not until I know that our orders will be carried out this time,” he told her, and she shook her head.  _

_ “Stubborn,” she muttered affectionately. “Captain Rackham -”  _

_ “I’ll be leaving before you decide on any further conditions,” he answered, and walked away.  _

He has done as Flint asked, although perhaps not for the reasons that he and her Highness the Lady Scott had envisioned. Somewhere on the plantation that lies ahead of Jack on the road is, presumably, a person that John Silver had seemed to think that Flint would willingly roll over and end a war for. Somewhere on that plantation lies an answer that presently stands just out of Jack’s reach - and Jack has never, ever been able to stand leaving a puzzle unsolved, an answer undug for - a mystery, in short. It has always infuriated Anne, who quite sensibly insists that sometimes it is best to simply let things be but it is not in Jack’s make up and so, like the overgrown bird Anne has sometimes accused him of being, he keeps picking at a thing until he finds the answer. And in this case -

“Captain Jack Rackham to see the owner of the estate,” he introduces himself to the guard at the gate, and thinks he perhaps sees the man start at the name. Good - they’ve heard of him, for whatever that may be worth in a place such as this one. “You may tell Mr. Oglethorpe that I’m here to see about a prisoner - he will remember Mr. Morgan.” He motions to the man in question, standing behind him, and the guard turns his gaze toward him, visibly relaxing. There is something odd in that, Jack thinks for a moment. Fifty years earlier the name Morgan in connection with a pirate would have sent men scrambling for the hills, and yet here, now -

“Mr. Morgan,” one of the guards says, “of course. Ben - go and tell Mr. Oglethorpe, will you? He’s got company again.” 

******************************

His imprisonment comes to an end almost as swiftly and unexpectedly as it began.

There is no warning. The day is one like any other - like one of the thousands Thomas has known since he arrived here, God alone knows how many years ago since Thomas has stopped keeping track. The sun beats down, his hands grip the handle of the hoe, and he tries not to think about anything but the repetitive sound of metal hitting dirt - not the monotony of the task, not how much his back will hurt when he is done with his work for the day - not the riders that have been spotted approaching the plantation from the east, whom he knows about only through the murmurs of his fellow inmates and the movements of the guards closer to the house. It does not matter - it cannot matter. When Thomas is called in from the field, he fully expects to be moved to a different sector, or to be told that he is to be moved to another task altogether - something (depressingly) prosaic and predictable for its frequency. He does not expect to be told to gather his things from his quarters. He does not expect the frisson of fear and expectation that goes through him at the order, or the way his heart starts to speed up as he is led to the main house. He does not expect the relief from the heat as he steps into the cool, dark parlor - or the shock that runs through him at the sight of a man approximately as tall as he, with dark hair and the most ridiculous sideburns he’s ever seen in his life, giving him a small smile.

“Ah,” the stranger says, “Mr. Hamilton, I assume. Captain Jack Rackham. Good to meet you - I’ve come to take you out of here.” 

There is, Thomas thinks, quite obviously something wrong with his hearing. There must be. This cannot truly be happening - not now, not after he has resigned himself to this place. Peter and his father would never -

Peter and his father are both dead. The knowledge slams into him, remembered suddenly, and his breath catches. They are dead, which means -

It cannot mean what he wants it to - can it? 

“I’m sorry,” he says. In years gone by, he might have said, “I beg your pardon,” but Thomas Hamilton has long since run out of the inclination to beg anything of any man. “I thought I heard you say -”

“If you need me to say it again, I’m happy to do so,” Rackham tells him. “We’re leaving. You, me, and whatever possessions you’ve managed to scrape together in this shit hole. I trust that’s all of them?” He gestures toward the relatively small sack being carried by one of the guards, and Thomas nods, his heart in his throat. It is not a confirmation - not by a long shot, and he has gone too long to cling to hope now, but it’s a stubborn thing, hope, and he knows what he wants to have Rackham mean - knows what he wants this to be and his stubborn, treacherous heart will not listen to his mind, suddenly, nor will his tongue, apparently. 

“Why -?” he asks, and Rackham gives him a frustrated look.

“I can assure you, if I knew the answer to that question, we’d all be playing an entirely different game of chess. Mr. Oglethorpe -”

Thomas turns, and finds that the owner of the plantation is standing in the corner of the room, a sad expression on his face. He has seen the man perhaps thrice previously - the sight of him now does nothing for Thomas’ nerves, which are jittering like mad. What is happening here, and why does the man who has held him captive for the past several years look as if his dog has died and he has simultaneously sucked on a lemon? 

“I am sorry, Thomas,” the man tells him. “I had little choice in the matter - none at all, truth be told. If I could have protected you -”

“I think you’ve  _ protected  _ me for quite long enough,” Thomas answers. The words come out of his mouth before he can stop them, and he cannot quite help the spike of fear that goes through him at realizing what has just come out of his mouth - or the exhilaration that follows it. He is leaving. No matter where he is being taken - no matter where this path leads, he is  _ leaving. _ He looks to Oglethorpe, who now appears taken aback, his mouth open slightly, eyes wide and dear God the man truly does not understand, does he? Thomas can feel his fingers itching as if for pen and paper - can feel the old familiar urge toward discussion - toward debate. He wants to speak with Oglethorpe - to explain to the self-important little man the difference between this Purgatory he has carved out here in the New World and true mercy. He wants -

With an effort, he takes back control of his wayward tongue. He does not know the temper of his new captor (and does he dare think the word companion, rather than captor? Is it even conceivable?) He cannot know the consequences of his words, and if this is not what he hopes it to be - He looks to Rackham’s face, and feels his heart do a flip as he sees the other man suppressing a smile rather than a frown at his words to Oglethorpe. Is it possible -? 

Caution has served him well for the past years. It has brought him to a place where he is neither chained nor beaten. It has won him a degree of freedom to move about within the plantation’s grounds. It has been his watchword ever since Bedlam. Since the days he cannot bear to think of even now.

It has been his trammell, and his chain. 

“Thomas - you know why you were brought here,” Oglethorpe starts, and dear God, Thomas hates the sound of his own name in this man’s mouth. Thomas, Oglethorpe calls him, and yet when was the last time he was truly Thomas Hamilton? When is the last time he was other than a beaten, defeated creature meekly accepting what has been given him as if it were a substitute for the things he has lost? 

“You know what awaited out in the world if you left - why I have done what I have done here,” Oglethorpe says, and Thomas begins to shake his head. No. He has heard all of this before - been told over and over again that he is unwanted, cast off by society. That there is no place for him in the outside world that will be safe. He has heard Oglethorpe’s rationale and it does not ring true but until today he did not have the luxury of saying so - of pointing out the flaws in his logic. When he opens his mouth to speak, however, he finds that the words he has already uttered have taken his voice with them. He wants to speak - he needs to do so, and yet -

“No,” he croaks at last. The word feels like it is being forced out of him, as if there were something in his throat - his old friend Caution, Thomas thinks bitterly, choking him. “No,” he repeats, still rusty. If he is going to suffer again under a new master, he is going to make certain that he has earned it. He looks to Rackham, waiting for the reaction to his defiance - and Rackham frowns in Oglethorpe’s direction.

“I do believe the man’s had enough of your frankly substandard rhetoric,” he tells the plantation owner, his tone scornful, and Thomas nearly faints with relief. “I can scarcely blame him - I’ve read it before from better men than you and wiped my arse with it on several occasions.”  He turns to Thomas. “If I may?” he asks. He may - dear God, of course he may, and Thomas nods, gesturing for him to continue. Rackham turns back toward Oglethorpe.

“I do these men a service!” the plantation owner manages to say at last. “I keep them safe from the world. I make certain -”

“Oh, you perform a service, certainly, but not for the men here,” Rackham answers him, his voice derisive. He is warming to his subject, Thomas thinks, and one corner of his mouth twitches in an unfamiliar relieved smile. “Tell me - do you at least charge a fee that’s worth it, for all of the bootlicking you do?” Rackham continues. “I’m fairly certain that if I were doing the next best thing to sucking cocks for the high and mighty I’d want commensurately worthy compensation.” 

Oglethorpe sputters, and Thomas does his very best not to laugh out loud. Whoever this man is, he is no friend of Oglethorpe’s, and therefore no friend to any man who had put Thomas here. Rackham leans in, dark eyes intent on Oglethorpe’s face, something more than a little frightening moving through them - a mix of derision and genuine, utter disgust. 

“You know,” Rackham says, “men like you never fail to amaze me. You spend your entire lives, noses held high, flowers stuffed up your nostrils so that you never smell the stink off the streets, spouting about goodness and duty and decorum so loudly you never hear people complaining while you step on them in the process of ordering their lives. You go on and on and then you’ve got the nerve to look surprised when the ones getting stepped on tap you on the shoulder and say, ‘oh, by the way, very nice that you’ve decided to slap a new coat of paint on the same old crumbling buildings, but that’s the third time you’ve broken my foot, do you think you might learn to watch where you’re going and possibly stop raising the rent since you’ve failed to actually change a damned thing?’”

The man behind Rackham, an older gentleman with a rough, weathered face, coughs, and Rackham stops.

“Can’t it wait?” he asks, and the other man’s eyes move to the clock, the one ticking away calmly on the wall, and Thomas is still too dazed to look at the thing properly - to see the familiar golden facings, the shape of it, to put two and two together even so far as to register the hour properly, as his mind keeps insisting over and over again that this is a dream - it has to be, and yet it very patently is not, for why on Earth would he dream of this man coming to take him away from here and not James? Why Captain Jack Rackham and not his wife? Why - 

“Good God, is that the time?” Rackham asks, and there is something new and different to the man’s voice now. He turns to Oglethorpe and sighs. “Oh you’re not really getting it are you? No, of course you’re not. Let me use small words this time.” He stops, takes a breath, and continues. “This place - is a prison. By logical extension, the people you’ve elected to keep incarcerated here are your prisoners. They’re sent here from England - from families that find them inconvenient, from prisons where they’re being held for crimes you consider easily overlooked in the face of your grand mission - which is to say, crimes of necessity - and kept here by way of force and the surrounding terrain, such that should they choose to leave, they have no way of doing so and nowhere to go if they should manage to escape. You can dress it up all you like, but you’ve still got them tilling your fields whether they like it or not, working for a pittance, denied the right to live their lives - simply put, you’re a slave driver - nothing more, nothing less. Oh, no, you don’t beat them - never that, but as a friend of mine once reminded me, a slave is a slave and it doesn’t matter what else you do as long as they’re denied the right to leave. Worse, you’ve elected to lie to yourself about it in order to sleep at night, and one day - one day quite soon, one hopes - it’s all going to come crashing down around your ears. There - perhaps that’ll get the point across to you. Remind me, Mr. Oglethorpe - I really must return here the next time I’ve a bowel problem as you, I’m certain, can be relied upon to give me the shits. Mr. Hamilton - if you’ll come with me, we’ve an appointment to keep.” 

He stands, and Thomas feels himself start. This is it, then - they really mean to take him from here immediately. He follows after the Captain, his eyes fixed on Rackham’s back as he leaves the room, and he does not spare so much as a glance over his shoulder for James Oglethorpe, eyes focused on the man who has just said what Thomas himself has been longing to say for years - what feels like long ages, in fact. He walks back out of the doors of the plantation, into the sunlight, and glory of glories, no one tries to stop him. He is not heading back to work. He will never spend another day in these fields - never again feel the overseers’ watchful eyes on him, never again feel the sudden urge to drop the hoe and walk away and squash it viciously in the interests of not being reminded yet again that he can do no such thing. He attempts to find the words for what he wants to say as he walks toward the gates, but he cannot, too tongue-tied by the realization that he is, in fact, about to be free. He cannot think otherwise - not having heard Rackham’s words to the plantation owner, not having seen the disgust in the man’s eyes as he condemned Oglethorpe for a slave owner, and God - Thomas has not wanted to think that word about himself these past years, but that is exactly what he has been. Now-

He stops just as they reach the plantation gates. He has dreamt of stepping beyond these bounds so many times. It has been so long since he was unfettered in those dreams - since he walked anywhere as a free man, and the moment feels more than significant. He steps forward -

“Not to ruin what is no doubt a momentous occasion for you, but you may wish to hurry,” Rackham says in his ear, and Thomas turns, startled. Rackham flashes him a sympathetic expression.

“Why -?” Thomas starts to ask, and the black-haired captain offers him a small, tight smile. 

“Mr. Oglethorpe is about to have a large, very expensive problem,” he says. “Oh, nothing fatal - he should survive without a scratch, but I would truly hate for us to still be on the premises when it occurs.” Thomas stares.

“The other inmates -” he starts.

“Will remain unharmed. I’d imagine some of them might even take the opportunity to escape. I know I certainly would,” Rackham reassures.

“This is your doing?” Thomas asks, and Rackham’s grim smile widens. 

“I had a dear friend once, name of Charles Vane, remind me to tell you about him once we’re away. I’d like to think that if he were watching me at the moment, he’d approve. Shall we?” 

Thomas cannot help the grin that slowly spreads over his face. He turns back for a moment and gives a short, sharp bark of laughter - the first he’s uttered in recent memory, in fact, the first laughter that has passed his lips in years - and then he walks forward, through the gates, still laughing gently as he walks toward the cart that stands waiting, and as the first drifts of smoke start to rise from the plantation house behind him. He does not know where he is going, but he is looking forward to it immensely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And finally Thomas is here! The lovely gif is, of course, made by @bean-about-townn, who is also my faithful beta reader and all around just amazing.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The gifs in this chapter are by the lovely Bean - all hail Bean, maker of gifs, patient, understanding beta reader, and my foe in late-night angst battles!

 

_Maroons’ Camp:_

She has never been so grateful to be home in all her life.

It is odd, she thinks - she spent her childhood itching to be away from this place. With every book she read, she had longed for it more - to see the places she had only dreamt of, to move beyond the confines of their small island. Now, though -

She falls into her mother’s arms, and nothing, nothing has ever been so comforting as to know herself back on familiar ground, among people she has known all her life. The Queen holds her tightly, and she can feel her mother’s tears on her skin, can feel her shaking.

“My daughter,” she repeats, over and over. “Madi.”

“Mother,” she murmurs in response, and for a moment - one, beautiful, shining moment, all is right with the world. When the Queen pulls back, Madi can see the tear tracks on her mother’s cheeks, and she stares at Madi’s face with mixed awe and gratitude.

“You are all in one piece,” the Queen says finally, less a statement than a question, and Madi nods.

“Yes. Thanks to Captain Flint.”

Her mother’s gaze moves to a point over her shoulder, and Madi sees the moment that they widen.

“Captain,” she greets, and Madi turns to find that James is standing behind her, looking every bit as tired as he did the day she rescued him and yet he is still upright, trying to hide the tremors moving through his tall frame.

“Majesty,” he answers, dipping his head deferentially, and Madi’s mother moves past her, taking hold of her general by both shoulders.

“I have seen better-looking dead men,” she admonishes, and he closes his eyes.

“It’s not as bad as -” he starts, and Madi puts her hands on her hips.

“I instructed Afúom to assist you in coming to us,” she says.

“I told him to keep well back,” James answers, opening his eyes again. The stubborn determination there is both remarkable and exasperating and Madi feels her lips flattening into an unhappy line. “He’s welcome to hover behind me all he likes, but I’ll not be seen leaning on him as though I’m on my last legs.”

“If you would deny help that is offered,” Madi tells him, “you must first be able to stand on your own two feet without falling over. Can you? Or is that railing all that is holding you up at the moment?”

“I’ve got about five more steps in me,” James admits, and she sighs.

“Mother -” she starts, and the Queen looks to James, assessing him and evidently agreeing with his estimate.

“Come inside,” she tells him. “You will sit down, and rest, and tell me what has transpired. Where is Mr. Silver?”

“It’s a very long story,” James answers, and begins to move forward. He stops momentarily and then, with what seems to be a monumental effort, he lets go of the stair railing, moving forward toward her mother’s hut with confident, firm steps that Madi is now absolutely certain are the most dishonest thing she has ever seen from him. He reaches the hut, takes two steps inside the door -

And then Madi rushes forward, catching him before he can fall and seeing him to a chair, which he sinks into with palpable relief.

“Captain,” her mother says, concern and disapproval both in her voice. “If you are attempting to make recompense for the actions of your Mr. Silver, my daughter’s safety and the retrieval of the cache are more than sufficient. There is no need -”

“It is a bit more complicated than that,” Madi interrupts her, and the Queen turns, one eyebrow raised.

“Tell me,” she commands, and James begins to speak, his voice hoarse with exhaustion, still slumped in the chair.

He is going to pass out at this rate, Madi thinks. He has been working himself half to death in the days between her rescue and their return to the camp. He claims that he is doing it to make up for the lack of hands aboard the ship - with Silver’s betrayal, they have been left with a terrifyingly small contingent of pirates from the former Walrus crew and from Rackham’s crew that either of them are willing to trust, and Madi’s men are not truly experienced sailors, despite the tutelage of the pirates over the past months. James has been - well, not running about the ship, more like staggering, really, even hauling on lines where necessary, despite Madi’s best attempts, and it is the near frantic pace he has kept that tells her the true reason he will not simply sit back and leave the work to someone else. She has seen this before - in men who have been through too much - in men for whom sleep has become almost as much a trial as being awake, and she can do nothing for it, at least not aboard the ship. Perhaps here -

“- there were six men sent to the island with instructions to find the chest and kill me in the process,” James is saying, and Madi’s attention returns to his words, horror lancing through her.

“Wait,” she says, holding up a hand. She has not heard this before. “Silver sent men to kill you?”

James nods.

“I dealt with five of them,” he tells her, “and then secured the cache inland. The sixth was with Silver -”

She cannot stop staring at him. She looks at him - at the still-healing wounds on his head and neck, at the scuff marks on his knuckles, and the slump in his shoulders as he tells the tale, and -

“My God,” she murmurs, the words more a prayer than an expression of the horror she feels at understanding just how close she has come to losing him. “James -”

“I’m fine,” he emphasizes. “They didn’t succeed. Madi -” He looks her in the eye. “I’m alright. I’m not saying they couldn’t have succeeded but -”

“He tried to kill you!” The words burst out of her, unrestrained, and she stands, her hands balling at her sides. “He said that he never intended your death, and it was another lie. To send six men against one -”

She stops. She has just realized something - something she cannot believe she has overlooked up until this point.

“This all happened before you came to rescue me,” she says slowly. “How long before?”

“A few hours,” James answers wearily. He turns back to the Queen. “It came down to a fight between Mr. Silver and myself. He - attacked me, and in the meantime, Rogers made his move. He set fire to the Walrus - I’m still not certain how, there was no time to speak with the survivors, but the explosion interrupted the battle. We were picked up by Captain Rackham’s ship.”

The Queen sits, silent for a moment. She does not move - she does not take her eyes off of James’ face, and Madi watches her, still trying to process what she has just learned. This -

“Silver stole the cache, so you stole it back - and he immediately went to Governor Rogers with this information?”

The Queen’s words are soft, and James nods.

“Yes.”

“And then he tried to kill you, despite knowing that my daughter was the Governor’s only true bargaining tool?”

Another nod.

“He did not attempt to present a united front? To bargain? To force the Governor to question whether all was as it seemed?”

James shakes his head.

“He came to an agreement with the Governor. My head and the cache in exchange for a few more hours and Madi’s life.”

“He panicked,” Madi says harshly. “He did not bother to stop, to think things through, or he would have realized that the Governor would never have killed me. He offered a treaty to me when I was being held on board his ship - one that he intended me to deliver to our people.”

The thought of it still makes her sick. The terms that he had offered - the betrayal he had wanted her to perpetrate -

“And where is Mr. Silver now?”

Madi hears her mother ask the question. She sees her turn, sees the straight line of her back, but she is focused not on the Queen at the moment, but on James. He has been swaying in the chair for some time, and now -

Madi sees the moment that he loses the fight to remain conscious. She darts forward, catching him before he can fall from the chair, a short cry escaping her, and her mother turns back.

“Mother -” Madi starts, and the Queen moves toward the door. She has a sharp word with the guard, and then she is back, moving to her general’s side. She assesses him with one swift look, and Madi can see the moment she spots the marks on his wrists from the chains Silver had put him in. The look she throws Madi is questioning, shocked, and confused all at the same time.

“What are these?” she asks, and Madi clenches her fist.

“When it was all over - when the battle was done,” Madi tells her, “Silver did this. He -”

The Queen looks at her face - sees the anger there, and the concern, and Madi sees her mother’s features soften.

“You will tell me the rest later,” she says. “For now -” She gestures to the two guards who have come through the door at her request. “The captain may use my bed,” she tells them. “Tell Anúm that I require her services immediately - she will need to tend his injuries now that he has returned. Madi - come with me.”

They encounter Mǎnu and Afúom directly outside her mother’s presence chamber.

“Your Highness - do you still need -?” Mǎnu starts to ask, and Madi nods.

“Yes,” she answers. “Guard Captain Flint, and continue to switch off with Abeo and Iyawa. Two guards will be at his door at all times until I say otherwise.” Both men dip their heads in acknowledgment, and her mother frowns minutely. They move away, toward their private quarters, and when they have stepped inside, her mother turns to her.

“You still fear for Captain Flint?” she asks, and Madi nods.

“Silver is a persuasive man,” Madi tells her. “I have him under lock and key, but I fear it will not be enough. I will not risk the Captain’s safety again.”

“Again?”

Madi nods. She is tired - almost as tired as James, truth be told, and she does not know where to start - how to start.

“I - I need to apologize,” she begins. “When this began, I urged you to trust Mr. Silver. I brought him into our councils. I helped to make him a part of this, and I -”

Her breath is catching, now, and this is not what she had intended for this conversation. She had wanted to speak to her mother calmly, reasonably, but there is a horrible, tight sensation in her chest and hot tears welling in her eyes and -

Her mother’s arms wrap around her tightly, and she is crying - sobbing, her face buried in her mother’s shoulder.

“I was wrong,” she tells her, over and over again as her mother holds her, her arms tightening around her daughter as she hears Madi’s sobbing confession. “I should have known - I should have seen -”

She can hold it back no longer. She tells her mother all - describes the battle, the aftermath, her decision to return. She describes the condition she had found James in - tells her of the conversation with Silver aboard the Eurydice.

“He tried to justify it,” she tells the Queen. “He tried to tell me it was for my own good. For James’ own good! He betrayed all of us - tried to hide what he had done - if I had not returned when I did-”

She pulls back, finally, and catches the brief look of horrified fury on her mother’s face.

“A plantation?” she asks, and Madi nods. “He told you that this is where he would have sent Captain Flint?”

“He claimed it was not what it seemed - that there was someone there, dear to Flint, whose presence would induce him to go - and to stay there, slave to the man who owns the property. I couldn’t - I had to -” She begins to sob again, the very idea enough to make her weep, and she feels her mother’s hands pull her closer again. There is a look on her mother’s face that she has seen too often lately - fear, and anger, and above all rising disgust.

“Thank Nyankopong for your instincts,” her mother tells her. She holds Madi until she ceases to weep again - until she pulls away entirely, reaching for a cloth, something to dry her eyes with and wipe the moisture from her face. Her head is beginning to pound, now, and she spends several minutes just trying to regain control of her breathing.

“You brought back only one ship,” her mother observes finally, and Madi nods wearily.

“Yes. The other I sent to investigate Silver’s claim about the plantation and the man imprisoned there. I felt it was the least I could do for the Captain as a friend, after he saved my life.”

“You know who this person is.” Her mother’s words are a statement, not a question, and she swallows hard.

“Yes.”

“You will not tell me?”

She hesitates for a split second and then slowly, reluctantly, she shakes her head.

“It is not mine to tell,” she answers, and catches her mother’s questioning, surprised look. “Please - I beg of you, do not ask me. It is the Captain’s secret to share, and I would not break his trust if I can avoid it. Not after what Silver has done to him. Please.”

Her mother’s expression turns considering.

“You believe that this will not affect us?” she asks, and Madi shakes her head.

“It is not relevant,” she assures her. “It is a minor matter to the war, but a great matter to the Captain. Mother - please. I do not even know if Silver told the truth about this when -” She stops. She still cannot believe the enormity of the things that Silver has done, and the horror she feels at them. She knows it in her head, but in her heart -

“When he lied about so much else,” her mother continues, her voice gentle. She knows, Madi realizes - she knows what is going through her daughter’s head, somehow. “I understand. We were all taken in by his words. You should not count yourself to blame when those older and wiser did not see it either.”

“You did not share his bed. You did not hear his lies and trust to them. You were not so blind,” she answers. She opens her mouth again, starts to speak, and then stops, a sigh escaping her. “Tell me I did the right thing?” she asks wearily. “I know what he has done. I know why he did it, but -” She stops and bites her lip, looking to her mother, uncertainty coursing through her.

Her mother, to her credit, does not answer right away. She sits, looking at Madi, her gaze serious, her hands still wrapped around her daughter’s hands.

“What do you believe would have happened if Silver had succeeded in his plans?” she asks quietly, and Madi feels her breath catch. The thought of it -

“The war would be over,” she says. “Captain Flint would be on a ship headed North, never to be seen again. With him and the cache both gone - Julius would go unopposed. The treaty would be ratified. The pirates would disperse.”

“And you see all of this as unacceptable,” the Queen states. “This treaty and your victory could still change much for us. With the capture of the Governor, we will be able to write the terms of our agreement with much greater ease than we might have otherwise. Our people will know peace, and freedom.”

“Peace and freedom that would have been earned with a lie!” She does not have to think on her response to her mother’s statement. “We would know freedom, you say - at what price to others who might have known the same - to the thousands who are enslaved here and on the mainland? At what cost to the millions who will die before they ever reach these shores? At what cost to Captain Flint, who has only ever offered us his aid - his loyalty?”

“Many lives might be saved by signing this treaty. Many who would die in this war - men and women on both sides, for an uncertain victory. To sign the treaty now offers that certainty.”

“How many more will be sacrificed? How many generations will look back and wonder why we did this thing - why we gave up when the war had just begun?”

“Even with the cache - even with Captain Flint here - the decision may still be made against us,” her mother points out softly. “It is a decision for all our people.”

“Then it will be made _by_ our people, and not John Silver,” Madi answers. “It will not be made by deceit, and lies, and more slavery. It will not -” She stops, looking at her mother more closely. There is something in her eyes that Madi recognizes - not pensive but approving. “You are testing me,” she realizes, and her mother smiles. 

“Not testing,” she answers. “Allowing you to listen to yourself. Now do you know the answer to your question?”

She does - now that she has reasoned it out herself. Now that she has listened.

“It was the right decision,” Madi answers, and the Queen nods.

“I believe so, yes. Peace that is bought with the pain of others is not peace, and I would not have our people decide our course based on one man’s fear.”

“You will tell Julius and the others of the treaty?” Madi asks, and her mother nods.

“I must. But now they have a choice - a true choice. I am proud of you for giving them that.”

The smile that spreads across Madi’s face is tired, but real.

“Thank you,” she says, and the Queen reaches forward, placing a hand on either of her daughter’s shoulders.

“Now,” she says, “to bed with you. You can be no good to our people if you are as tired as Captain Flint.”

She goes cold at the thought. Her bed will remind her of him. The sheets will still smell of him. She cannot sleep there - not right now.

“The bed -” Madi begins, and her mother shakes her head.

“I had the linens washed,” she answers, reading Madi’s mind. “When I knew you had not died - when I knew you would come home again.”

It is the best news Madi has had in a month.

“Captain Flint has your bed,” she observes. “Where will you -?”

“Do not concern yourself,” her mother tells her firmly. “Go. Sleep, and when you wake up, then we will discuss matters further. Good night.”

She does not question further. She is in her bed within minutes and asleep almost before her head hits the pillow, burrowed into the soft warmth of the mattress.

************************************************************

Freedom feels every bit as good as Thomas has dreamt it would.

He has always thought that if he ever left the plantation - if he were ever freed - he would be hungry for news. It has been so long since he heard anyone converse about anything that was happening out in the world - since he so much as asked the date, and yet now that he is once again a free man ( _Free_. He is really, truly free at last, and the word tastes sweet on his tongue, runs through his thoughts over and over again) he finds that he cannot force himself to ask. He does not wish to confront the question immediately - avoids it, in fact, but as they sit on the cart that is taking Thomas toward whatever fate Rackham has in store for him, the Captain asks how long he has been a prisoner and Thomas finds that he has no answer.

"Cat got your tongue still?" Rackham asks, and Thomas cannot answer, struck dumb by the suddenness of the question - by the flow of conversation, unused as he is to having to speak to people now, already knocked off his balance by the day’s events thus far.

“You know you _can_ speak,” Rackham continues over the rattling of the cart behind them and the sound of the horse’s hooves on the road. “Whatever the bastard overseers might have done, I don’t bite, although I will admit a tendency to ramble on a bit.” Thomas swallows hard.

He had had a tendency to ramble too, once. He remembers that - remembers that he used to be damn near impossible to overrule once he’d warmed to a topic. He used to speak frequently, passionately - used to be able to use his voice to sway opinions, to educate, to challenge and suddenly he misses that - misses that version of himself so fiercely it startles him. When, exactly, had he stopped being that man? When had he stopped using his voice and retreated into silence? He does not recall, exactly, but he knows that the change occurred, and he hates it.

“December, 1705,” he says finally. He will learn to speak again - he must, for he won’t live as this silenced, ghostly version of himself, and it starts here. His voice sounds rusty - far from the smooth, cultured tone of his drawing room in London, and he winces at the sound of it. He clears his throat, preparing to try again. “It was 1705 when I was taken. I -”

Rackham is staring at him, seemingly dumbfounded.

“What is it?” Thomas asks, and Rackham blinks.

“My God,” he says. “1705 - that makes it ten - no, eleven years or thereabouts. Why -?”

Thomas chokes.

“Eleven - _years_?” he asks. His heart is pounding, suddenly, and it is all he can do not to be sick. That cannot be right. It cannot, and yet -

What earthly reason would anyone have to lie about this of all things?

“You didn’t know?” Rackham asks, and Thomas shakes his head. There is no lie in Rackham’s eyes - not in the pitying gaze he sends Thomas’ way, or in the way that his hands tighten around the reins. “Christ,” he mutters. “That’s got to be one hell of a blow. Do you need a moment, or -?”

There is a roaring sound in Thomas’ ears, and he leans forward, trying to control his wayward stomach. He cannot answer Rackham - cannot even register his question as the world has just tilted on its axis entirely. Eleven years. It is 1716, and somehow -

He had known it had been some time since he arrived at the plantation. He may not be James, with his absolutely impeccable internal clock, but he is not ignorant of the fact that the world has kept spinning, no matter that Thomas felt it must stop doing so the moment he had been taken from James and Miranda. He knows that time waits for no man but this -!

“What month is it?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

“March,” Rackham answers, tone subdued. “The fourth of March, today.”

If it is March 4th, 1716, then Thomas is forty-two years old, heading onto forty-three. Over a decade has gone by and somehow - somehow, without him noticing it save to lament his ever-growing boredom and despair - he has spent the years when he should have been making a name for himself locked away, kept from doing anything or being anyone of any note. Kept from the people he loves, and how have James and Miranda fared all these years? If he is forty-two, then Miranda will be just past forty-one if she lives, and James will be forty-three even sooner than Thomas. What must they look like now, if they live? Thomas knows that there is grey creeping into his own beard, and how strange it is to realize that it is not, as he had rather hoped, a symptom of stress but of age - or perhaps it is both. Has the same begun to happen to James?

“Dear God,” he chokes out. He senses Rackham reaching out awkwardly to pat him on the shoulder, his hand landing tentatively, as if he is afraid Thomas will startle. He does not, but he ducks his head down further, closing his eyes against the tears that are beginning to well in them.

He had never intended to stay on the plantation so long. He had never intended to _stay_ at all, and yet somehow he had. Somehow routine had become comforting, his initial relief at being taken out of his shackles and allowed to walk under the sun translating into complacency, his near-pathetic gratitude at being saved from the horrors of Bethlem becoming a lack of will to challenge the powers that had sent him to Bethlem in the first place. He has, he realizes, sat still for far too long, and the result -

“How did you know where to find me?” he asks finally, and Rackham retracts his hand, clucking at the horse to get him moving again.

“I was sent by friends of yours,” he answers. “Well - I say friends, I don’t know, actually. Wouldn’t tell me a thing, and believe me when I say that when it comes to asking questions around those two, it’s best not to, unless of course you’re not fond of your head.”

“These people - what are their names?”

It’s too much to hope. He knows it. He has not survived the past decade - oh _God_ that thought hurts. The words stick, his mind barely able to process them, but he forces himself to it anyway - it is denial that has led him to this pass, after all. He has not survived the past _decade_ by feeding himself on false hope, and yet at the moment he wants more than anything to hear that somehow, some way, his loves have found him finally, and is it truly so terrible of him to wish to be returned to them? He looks at Rackham, who hesitates.

“You’ve already had a hell of a shock,” the captain says. “Are you certain -?”

“Just - tell me their names, please,” Thomas all but begs, and the other man frowns.

“Alright,” he says, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I was sent by Captain Flint and his bloody terrifying partner, the woman they call the Maroon Princess. I don’t know if you know either of them, but -”

Thomas takes a deep breath and lets it out again slowly, disappointment sinking in slowly. It is not James and Miranda, then. Of course - it was hardly likely, and yet he had hoped -

Still. Whoever these people are, they have freed him from the plantation. He owes them better than this - in fact, he owes Captain Flint in particular a great deal.

“Captain Flint saved my life,” he says. He does not elaborate. The horror that was his time in Bethlem is his alone, and there is no one on this Earth who needs to know the depths to which the place drove him, or how close he had been to doing something truly irreversible when word of his father’s death and his impending transfer from the asylum had reached him. Rackham is still looking at him curiously, and Thomas turns his head away, just enough to let the other man know that he is not interested in giving out details.

“So you do know each other,” Rackham queries, and Thomas shakes his head.

“I’ve never met him,” he answers, and Rackham’s eyes narrow, skepticism flashing over his face.

“You’re certain?” he asks. “You’ll forgive me but I find it difficult to believe that the man would save your life if you’ve never met. Think hard. Stands about so tall, perpetual scowl, wears a great deal of black?” Thomas shakes his head.

“That describes a great many -” he starts, and Rackham scowls.

“You wouldn’t happen to know anyone with _red_ hair?” he asks pointedly. “Flint’s got a shock of it when he’s not shaving it off in some bizarre grieving ritual. Beard? Green eyes?”

Wait.

For the third time that day, Thomas feels the world grind to a stop, and Rackham was right - this is too much, too quickly, but he would not wish the words taken back for the world. Rackham must see the recognition in his eyes - the desperate hope that has suddenly flared to life again, for the other man’s mouth quirks upward in a satisfied smirk.

“Ah. I see I’ve struck a chord,” he says, and Thomas swallows hard, mouth suddenly dry.

“Captain Flint’s given name - it would not happen to be James, would it?” he asks. Rackham nods - and Thomas feels something in his chest let go, something that has been tight and painful for eleven years loosening because the black-haired captain has just described James McGraw - _his_ James, who is alive and well and evidently waiting for him. Alive. The word resonates in his head, amazing and terrifying and wonderful all at the same time. James is alive. Whatever else has happened - whatever else may be waiting for him at the other end of this journey - James is not dead. _James is not dead_. Thomas has been found at last, and he is on his way home, wherever that might be. Thomas inhales, and feels half the weight that has been resting on him dissipate.  He sits up straighter, and when he speaks the rust has finally fallen off of his voice, the cobwebs blown from the corners of his mind, nerves suddenly on fire with longing, with hope, with the energy that is thrumming through him all of a sudden. He is not alone - not anymore, and he has a thousand questions but none of them are half as important as the next one off his tongue.

“How long?” he asks, and Rackham’s eyes widen in surprise at the sudden change in his demeanor. “How long until we reach him?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So - I wasn't going to post this chapter until I'd written chapter 8, friends, but here's the deal - I haven't seen the sun properly in what feels like forever (and in fact we've had rain for seven weekends running here). I'm coughing, my throat hurts, and I have yet to find anything that truly helps with that despite trying all my usual remedies - not sure if it's allergies or a cold but either way, it's not fun. In short, I feel shitty and I need something to cheer me up, and posting fic does that. Comments would be loved extra right now - this weather comes with brain fog for me, unfortunately, and getting comments really does help me write.

_Maroon Camp:_

 

James has not slept this much in years.

He has forgotten, somehow, how wonderful being in bed can feel. Somewhere in between the blood and the heartache and the horror of the past several months, it has slipped his mind how the sheets on a bed can feel against his bare feet. How soft a pillow can be under his cheek, and how very good it is to greet the dawn by rolling over in bed, offering the new morning a muffled fuck off, and burrowing further into the blankets, refusing to so much as stir until noon. It is a luxury he has not experienced in what feels like a lifetime even though in reality it has only been a year or so, and still, James cannot help the feeling of utter relief that floods him when he realizes that he is no longer required to do anything other than simply go back to sleep.

This is not normal. He knows it on some level - has known it since the morning that he woke up after arriving on the island, in the Queen’s bed, wondering exactly when he had passed out during the debriefing, feeling groggier than he had done since the last time he had dared to get drunk in Eleanor’s tavern. The thought had done him no good - the reminder of Eleanor had hurt, and for the first time in months, James had found himself quite completely unable to refrain from weeping. He knows that the Queen or her people had likely discovered the tear-stained linens some time later. He does not care, either about that or about the amount of time he has spent asleep since returning. It is strangely liberating, he thinks, to have no crew and no ship to be looking after. There is no one to demand anything. No one to be disciplined for fighting. No supplies to be bought or bartered for, nowhere to be -

No one to barge in and find him crying his eyes out, and Christ fucking Jesus but he has needed to do exactly that for far too long. It is not something he sets out to do - of course it is not, and yet it seems that his exhaustion has brought to the fore all the things he has not granted himself the luxury of being devastated about prior to now. Eleanor’s death. The burning of Miranda’s house. The loss of his ship and with it the loss of everything he’s given the last ten years to accomplish.

Madi worries for him, he knows, but in truth, he cannot help but be relieved, concerned as he has been that he has somehow, among all his losses, lost too the ability to actually register pain, with heartache after horror being piled atop him with such frequency of late. He has not, however, wept over Silver (and that, he thinks is another reason to stay in bed - if he stays here, he cannot be reminded of the man with every turn he takes, expecting him to be right behind him where he has positioned himself all these months and how - _how_ did James miss the slow creeping presence of him? How had he missed the signs? Was he truly so desperate, or had there truly been so little to catch? Does he dare trust his own judgment again if -?)

No. He will not continue thinking about this. He will not weep over Silver, or his lies, or what might have been if he had just seen what it is that James and Madi are fighting for - just understood for one moment why it is so very important to them. Not now - not when he has finally managed to get comfortable again. He buries his face in the pillow, resolutely refusing to think on the events of a week earlier. He will examine that hurt another day - a day when he is far less likely to weep once again, when he wakes not from a nightmare as he has done repeatedly since making landfall but from simply no longer being tired. That -

Seems unlikely, if James is honest. He _is_ tired, still - exhausted beyond all belief, beyond grief, beyond caring about anything but the warmth of the bed. He closes his eyes again, allowing the weariness to descend over him again, only just barely registering the voices outside the room as he slips back into sleep.

************************************************************

Idleness feels wrong.

Rackham has, very graciously, granted Thomas the use of the captain’s cabin. He does not understand who Thomas is to James, but he does understand that whoever he is, he is important. As such, he says, he feels it is only prudent to afford him every possible comfort - the captain’s cabin and Rackham’s own straight razor and shaving mirror (and Thomas does not miss the suggestion that the rough beard he has not had the means or the initiative to shave in the past few years might do with a trim or wholesale removal, whichever one he chooses). More importantly, Rackham has given him space to think - and pointed out the books that sit on a shelf neatly arranged on one wall. Books. New, unopened books that Thomas has never read before, and it is all he can do not to fall to the floor at the man’s feet, weeping and thanking him for all he has done, and for this small kindness in particular, insignificant though it seems in comparison with the anticipation that has been running through his veins since Rackham revealed their destination and what, or rather who, awaits them there. He cannot force the wind to carry them faster toward the Maroons’ camp, though, and in the meantime, Thomas has occupied himself with the small miracles that lay before him, their spines looking up at him with all the appeal that other men would find in a freshly-opened treasure chest.

He should be thrilled. Six years ago, when he had still been a shaking, hollowed out shell of himself - when he had still jumped at every small noise, when he had still longed for silence above all else - he might have been. When he had first emerged from Bedlam, the very thought of a shelf of books and permission to enjoy them would have meant the world to him. Instead, though -

He closes his eyes against the memory. He will not think of the windy, rainy day that they pulled him from his cell to be taken to one of the Earl’s country residences, to be confined to a small room not much unlike his cell in its lack of comforts until his journey to Oglethorpe’s plantation. He will not recall the disgust on his uncle’s face, or his pathetic gratitude at being removed from the asylum, nor will he allow himself to think on what might have been - what he had wished for with all of what remained of his soul when he had first apprehended that he was, indeed, leaving Bethlem. He is on his way to James now - that is all that matters - and in fact, he suspects, it is the reason that he cannot focus on the book in his hand.

He closes the book resignedly. He has not understood half of the text since he began reading it, he feels - too distracted by the questions that keep running through his mind, and by the unfamiliar sway of the ship, and so there is little point in continuing to stare at the pages. Plainly, there is no distraction to be had here, and besides - he has the sudden urge to test this new-found freedom of his.

He stands. It has been eleven years since he had the freedom to walk away from a task without recrimination of some sort - eleven years since the last time he could do as he pleased, and now, presented with the opportunity, he finds himself hesitating. If he walks out the cabin door and goes to the railing - if he attempts to go down to the hold, even - will anyone stop him?

It is a question he has asked himself continually since leaving the plantation. He is unused, he finds, to having a lack of boundaries. That he can move about the ship without consequence seems a far-fetched idea, a notion better entertained by someone whose wrists do not bear the marks of chains and who does not still expect to hear the turn of a lock with every door he goes through. He has barely stirred from the cabin since he came on board two days ago, but the few times he has left it have been -

Exhilarating. Terrifying. Utterly foreign and Thomas finds the simple act of doing so addictive in its own way even as he despairs at his own fear every time he contemplates what would once have been so very commonplace and unremarkable. Still - he is getting better at it; he must. He crosses the room and lays a hand on the latch to the door and then, with a deep breath, opens it. The latch works, wood gives way to open air, and he stops in the doorway for a moment simply to be grateful that the door does, indeed, open rather than being locked from the outside, as every door has been for the past decade. The salt spray hits his face, and he squints in the sunlight, his eyes having grown used to the darkness of the cabin, and yet he cannot help the small smile that spreads across his face as he steps beyond its confines and makes his way toward the side - the gunwale, he recalls vaguely from the days that he had tried to learn some of the terminology surrounding his lover’s profession. The sun shines on his face and for the first time in years he can simply enjoy it, rather than cursing the heat or making unlikely promises to an uncaring deity in exchange for a day without sweat. He stands, his hands on the railing, staring out to sea, and for a moment - for one shining moment, he allows himself simply to marvel at the color of the water and the way the ship moves through it - at the stretch of it as far as the eye can see. He has been staring at sugarcane for so long - the sight of something else, even another vast, unchanging expanse, is a welcome change.

“Beautiful sight, isn’t it?” The voice comes from his left, and Thomas starts. He is still not accustomed to people addressing him directly - they have all actively avoided it for so long. Rackham, however, seems to have no such qualms, and Thomas cannot decide whether he is grateful or irritated at the intrusion.

“Marvelous,” he agrees, finally. His voice still sounds a bit odd to his ears, but he is endeavoring to use it more often, even just to say good morning or to ask questions about the ship. James will expect him to speak, and he does not intend to disappoint him. Furthermore, he cannot expect the knowing, half-fearful silence of his fellow inmates at the plantation from the men here. After all - he has not earned their silence - or their trust. Here -

Here he will not have to step in for the doctor, at least he devoutly hopes not.

_June, 1710:_

 

_The screaming starts and does not stop._

_At first, Thomas truly believes that he has lost his mind. It is not surprising, really. The screaming in Bedlam was ever-present - why, then, should he not start hearing it the day his mind finally cracks from the boredom of this place? He closes his eyes, and when he opens them -_

_Other men are looking toward the boiler and the screaming coming from it. He is not imagining it - someone is screaming in terror and pain, and oh god, Thomas knows that sound. He knows intimately well the feeling that wells up in his chest at hearing it - his bones ache with the remembered horror of it, and he cannot -_ _cannot_ _turn away. He drops his hoe, and without another word, he begins to hurry, stumbling over the uneven ground of the field toward the boiler house. No one attempts to stop him - the guards have already turned their attention away, caught by the same sound, and if Thomas were a selfish man, he might take this opportunity to run, but god help him, he is not - not even now, and so he runs toward the source of the noise. He rounds the corner of the building and finds -_

 _“Shhh, shhh, I know, I know,” he is babbling before he can think about it. He is not certain how he ended up on the ground, but he is sitting at the other man’s side (_ _man_ , _he thinks - the term hardly applies, the lad whose head now lies in Thomas’ lap is barely more than a child. Jesus Christ Almighty, what the hell has a boy like this done to be sent here - condemned to this? The anger blazes bright for a moment but Thomas has no time for it). He has hold of the boy’s uninjured hand, the one on the left that does not smell like charred meat, and it does not matter how hard the lad squeezes, Thomas has been through worse._

_“It’s going to be alright,” he assures, through the moans and the screams. “I know - I know. It hurts like hell but I promise it will go away. Breathe.” He lifts his head, and finds several of his fellow inmates around them, faces white, terrified. One or two look green around the gills, and Thomas vaguely registers that he likely should be as well - if he did not have scars the equal to any this lad will have dotting his back and arms._

_“Well?” he snaps, and one of them starts._

_“Thomas -” he starts, and Thomas’ glare intensifies._

_“Where the hell is the doctor?” he demands, and the lone guard standing by them seems to start from a daze._

_“Someone’s gone to fetch him,” he says. “Might take a while, though - he lives five miles away.”_

_The words send a chill down Thomas’ spine._

_“Five miles,” he repeats, and the guard nods. “Is there no one closer?”_

_A woman - one of the only women Thomas has spotted here - steps forward, and Thomas regards her with surprise._

_“I know what to do,” she says, and he does not ask questions, simply shifts so that she can kneel at his side._

_“I need water,” she says softly, for his ears only. “The burn needs water.” She has a pleasant lilt to her voice - Irish, Thomas thinks, and wonders how she ended up here. “And it must be elevated.” She speaks in something that is barely more than a whisper, her eyes on the ground, her shoulders hunched. She does not make eye contact, and he does not ask - does not even stop to wonder why not. He looks up to the prisoners and guards standing nearby._

_“Water,” he says, louder so they can hear it, and no one moves. “A cloth soaked with water from the well, now,” he emphasizes. Still, no one moves, and Thomas cannot get up, not without dislodging the lad, but damn it, he was not a lord once for nothing. “Damn it, look at him!” he snaps. “You - Baldwin. Get me a rag soaked in water right now, or by God I will never lift a finger to help you again. Willis - run to the house and see if Mr. Oglethorpe might be bestirred to find some laudanum. Durham -”_

_The men he named have begun to scramble to their tasks, and he turns his attention back to the lad, who is still moaning and letting out small screams every time the hand moves. It is lying on the ground and the unnamed woman is right - that cannot be a good idea. He knows all too well what dirt in a burn had felt like._

_“Durham,” he says gently. “Listen to me. I need you to lift this arm. Can you do that for me?” The lad groans, and Thomas swallows hard. He cannot allow this to get to him - not now. Later he can become a shaking, horrified mess trapped in his own memories. Later. “Durham - what is your given name?”_

_The lad’s moans become whimpers, and Thomas clenches his teeth._

_“Durham -”_

_The woman shakes her head, and without another word, she moves to the boy’s other side, taking hold of Durham’s arm, and soundlessly lifting it, ignoring the scream of pain that results. They are, Thomas realizes, kneeling on wet ground - someone, then, has at least attempted to stop the burning by throwing water on the arm, and he takes a moment to be grateful for that, at least._

_“Do you think the master of the house will turn up?”_

_Thomas looks up. He has not spoken with anyone here beyond what is required - he has no desire to do so now. He does not answer, and the other prisoner gives him a look._

_“You’re an odd one - like me,” she says, and in another life, Thomas might have answered her - might have told her that half of London would agree with her, might have made a joke of it, but here -_

_“You’re going to be fine,” he murmurs, and pets the lad’s hair until the doctor arrives. When he does, Thomas slips away, and when Durham tries to thank him, weeks later, he simply gives the lad a warning look and then goes back to his work. This place is not his home, this life is not his, and he refuses to become attached to it._

Thomas shakes his head. The memory is not helping - not even remotely, and he cannot wonder now what ever became of Durham or the woman that had helped him that night. Still -

“You’re an odd duck,” Rackham says, and Thomas turns to him, raising one eyebrow.

“What exactly do you mean?” he asks, and Rackham gestures to him.

“You’re - well. I’m not certain what I was expecting from a friend of Captain Flint’s, but it wasn’t you,” he answers. He gestures to Thomas again, and Thomas attempts not to be offended at the perplexed nature of the way that Rackham looks at him. “You sound like a lord, for a start. What the hell were you doing in that place?”

“Suffering, mainly,” Thomas answers, and Rackham snorts.

“Yes, I got that,” he answers, and Thomas leans back against the railing.

“You wish to know who I am,” he states, and Rackham joins him in sitting, backs to the sea. He is not going to get out of this conversation, Thomas realizes, and the thought sends a jolt of unease through him. Rackham wants the answers to his questions too badly - but then, Thomas wants answers to questions of his own, and perhaps they can be useful to one another.

“Who you are to Captain Flint, mainly,” Rackham answers. “I confess to a certain amount of curiosity as to who you were previously, but for the moment, I should very much like to know why I’ve been sent North to chase what Flint plainly believed to be a ghost story.”

It is a strange thing, Thomas thinks - he has survived Bedlam, can take the scent of human flesh charring and the sight of blood in larger amounts than most people have ever seen in their worst nightmares, but the idea of James thinking him dead - the idea of James grieving him all these years - is enough to make him ill. It… explains a great deal, including why James has not come for him himself.

“How is he?” he asks, and Rackham stares at him. Thomas looks at him, and the other man sighs.

“Exhausted, when I last spoke with him, and still staggering around as if he intended to conquer the world,” he answers exasperatedly. “The most fucking stubborn man I’ve ever met, and I sailed with Charles Vane for eight years. He threatened to have those men over there slit my throat if I didn’t fetch you for him with all haste. Does that answer your question?”

It does not - not truly. It does not tell him what he truly wishes to know, but there is much that Thomas can read into Rackham’s answer, if he allows himself. James is tired. He has retained his stubborn insistence upon working himself into an early grave, and if Thomas allows himself to do so, he can just about picture James, half dead from fatigue and still bellowing orders on deck - but no, Rackham had mentioned him shaving his head from grief, and that, Thomas simply cannot picture, cannot process the potential implications, and so he returns to the more familiar image of his lover in his head. James appears to have become a great deal less patient since Thomas saw him last, and Thomas can hardly blame him for that. He only hopes that when they are reunited, they can both learn to tame their tempers, but for now -

“My God,” Rackham says beside him, still staring at Thomas, “I _am_ an idiot, aren’t I?”

Thomas tenses, and Rackham crosses his arms.

“Teach left Nassau in 1707,” he says. “Flint turned up what - 1706 or thereabouts, and you were imprisoned -” He stops, staring at Thomas. He is putting the pieces together, Thomas knows - adding one bit to the other to come up with the truth of the matter. “This has all been about you, hasn’t it?” he asks, and Thomas stares right back, even as some part of him wants to back away, wants to avoid this.

“All of what?” he asks. Rackham gives him a singularly unamused look.

“Don’t play the cretin, it doesn’t suit you,” he says. “The _Maria Aleyne_. None of us could fathom why Flint had done it, but now -” He shakes his head. “Tell me - who was it aboard that ship that Flint wanted dead? A political rival? The one, perhaps, who -”

“My father,” Thomas answers, and Rackham stops, one eyebrow raising and his eyes widening minutely.

“Your father was the one who -?” He motions toward the scars on Thomas’ wrists, and Thomas nods. “Jesus. I imagine that before the plantation you were in what - Newgate, or-?”

It is all Thomas can do not to attempt to cover the scars. Instead, he stands a little straighter, and clenches his teeth, and grits out -

“I would appreciate it if you would not ask the question.”

Rackham nods, plainly shocked.

“He went more than a little mad, you know,” he says quietly, “on that ship. We all heard about it - an utter slaughter belowdecks. You and Flint were -?” he starts to ask. Thomas nods again, shoulders tensed, hands clenched at his sides. He should be denying it, he knows, but the image of James, stricken with grief, losing himself to such a degree as to be termed mad even by another pirate hurts, deep down, creating a knot in Thomas’ chest painful enough that he almost wishes to rub at it. Besides - Rackham knows. He can see it in the man’s eyes and hear it in his voice. To his surprise, Rackham says nothing - only settles back into place at the railing, elbows resting behind him.

“When Max hears about this, she will never, ever let it go,” he predicts, and Thomas frowns. Max? Rackham shakes his head. “Tell you about her later,” he says. “So - all this time, Flint’s been setting fire to everything that moves and has a British flag in the West Indies, and all because -”

“I doubt it was done solely because of me,” Thomas says, and Rackham looks at him for a moment, considering.

“No,” he says. “I suppose not. Still -” He stares at Thomas, all manner of things going through his eyes, and at last, he settles for a sort of burning curiosity that Thomas recognizes. “To know where it all began - and how. Now that would be a story worth the hearing.”

The sun is beating down, still, and the wind is in his face, and for the very first time in a long while, Thomas feels as though he might, just possibly, have regained a small measure of control over his situation in the look on Jack Rackham’s face. It is a satisfying feeling - one that curls his mouth up at one corner.

“I’ll tell you,” he says, “if you will tell me how it has continued.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to thank everybody for all of the wonderful comments - you're the best, all of you! I'm still coughing but at least I can talk now and the weather's clearing up - all hail the sunshine! In other notes - I've decided this thing's going to be ten chapters instead of eight because there's just - too much to do and to wrap up in eight, so happy.... idk, happy Ramadan/Shavuot, I guess!

“Should he be sleeping so often?”

Madi keeps her voice low, as does Anúm, her mother’s doctor, while they discuss the man sleeping in the next room - sleeping peacefully, for once, Madi is glad to note, looking at the top of James’ head that she can just see peeking out above the blankets. She is happy to see that he is getting the rest she had so badly wished for him to have, but now -

It has been over a week. More than a week since they returned, prisoners in the hold, the cache firmly in their possession, and a whole new set of problems awaiting them on the island, not the least of which are the exceedingly loud talks that Madi has just left - escaped from, really, as she has no stomach to bear more of them today and nothing further to offer than what she has given already. She is weary - bone weary, from arguing, from cajoling, from listening to the same recursive arguments fly back and forth for days on end - weary from worry, and heartache, and the knowledge that she is going to lose this fight.

She is almost certain of it now. At first she had had hope. She has the cache, and Flint, and the remaining pirates of Nassau, as well as many others who came to see England overthrown in the Americas. She had hoped that it would be enough to outweigh the opinions of those who cannot bring themselves to support her war - their war, but it is not to be. There are too many who, having seen their allies’ leadership fracture not once but twice, now believe that trusting them is a foolish risk. There are many who wish for certainty - for peace, no matter how temporary, in the only home they have ever known. There are those who have just found safety for the first time and have no wish to lose it, and others still who burn for war but believe it to be unwinnable, and what was it that James had once said to her about England seeming inevitable? She wishes she could have his voice join hers now - wishes she could have just his presence to bolster her, but she cannot in one breath refuse to allow an Englishman to make choices for her people and in the next bring in another to sway them to her side unless she wishes to seem a puppet. This must be her people’s choice, and only their choice, and she is not blind enough to think otherwise. She will abide by their decision - will learn to accept it, but the knowledge of how the vote is likely to go remains disheartening, and so she has retreated to the room where James has evidently decided to sign his own treaty with the blankets and live among them forevermore.  

Anúm clucks her tongue, and Madi is drawn back from her musings to the room she stands in. 

“He has exhausted himself badly,” the older woman tells her. “Between the fighting and the shock, I am surprised that he does not sleep more soundly, truly. The nightmares, I believe, are the only reason he wakes as often as he does.” 

Madi turns to face her fully, her brows furrowing as she frowns.  

“There are remedies for such things,” she says. “Medicines for sleep. Why have you not given them to him?”  

“I have offered,” Anúm answers. “He refuses. I do not know if he fears attack while he sleeps or to be unable to wake from the dreams - he will not say.”  

_Or perhaps,_ Madi thinks, _because if he sleeps long enough and awakes finally, he will have to face a world where he has no home, no ship, no purpose left save for war, and only one friend._ She exhales and closes her eyes. She knows the feeling all too well - the desire to go to sleep and wake only if and when the world has become a kinder place. Where she will not be reminded in every breath what she has lost to reach this point. She has spent the past week with this sensation, as though something has been carved out of her chest. She cannot imagine how she will feel in ten years - perhaps, she thinks, like staying in bed for a week and refusing remedies for her sleeplessness in order to avoid facing the world.  

“Both - and neither,” she says, and she can feel Anúm’s questioning gaze. She opens her eyes again, and offers the other woman a smile. “Thank you,” she says quietly. “You may go.” The doctor nods, and Madi is left alone save for the two guards and the man they are guarding.

She does not wish to wake him when she enters the room. For all that he has remained largely stationary for the past week, it sounds as though he has actually gotten very little rest, so she keeps her footsteps quiet and unobtrusive as she moves to sit next to the bed.

It is quiet here. She is grateful for that as she sits and reads - the hut where they are discussing the treaty has been anything but quiet, and her poor ears have been aching. She is glad for the silence as much as anything else - and so she notices when it is broken as James shifts in the bed. He flinches in his sleep - she can see his eyebrows, can see them begin to move, coming together in what looks like concern although it is difficult to tell when they are all she can see of his face. His breathing speeds up - there is a low, murmuring sound, something incomprehensible - and then he is moving, arms and legs flailing as he sits up, breathing hard, green eyes wild as he opens them to look around him in confusion before comprehension steals over his face again. He closes his eyes for a moment, a shaking breath escaping him, and she closes the book she has been reading slowly, allowing him a moment. 

He opens his eyes again, and looks in her direction, letting Madi know that she can speak without startling him.  

“Anúm says you have been having nightmares,” she says quietly. “She was correct, I see.”  

James gives her a weary look, irritation flashing across his face.

“You cannot tell me you haven’t had the same,” he says, and she nods. 

“Of course I have,” she answers him. “I dream of fire, and blood, and Eleanor dying in front of me while I am dragged away. I dream of chains, and of pain. Sometimes, I dream of him.”

She sees James flinch.

“Madi -” he starts, and she shakes her head.

“No,” she cuts him off. “I have dreams, yes. They are painful, but we are not here to talk about them without also discussing your dreams. I suspect they are much the same - am I right?”

James does not answer. She waits, patiently. She has asked a question, and sooner or later he will formulate an answer.

“There was no fire or death,” he tells her finally. It’s not quite an answer, but it’s the start of one. “You’d think I’d be dreaming of both those things but I suppose the truth is that they’ve both become so… prosaic over the last ten years that I don’t. Perhaps one day if I live to retire from this life I might start dreaming of them again, wondering what I might have done to prevent all of what’s happened - if there was another way and I just didn’t see it. Maybe on that day I’ll remember Silver standing there pointing that pistol at me in the forest and feel something other than sorrow or rage at what he tried to do, but -” 

“What I saw on your face a moment ago - it was not rage,” Madi ventures, and James flinches again. He looks down at the blankets on the bed, and she reaches out a hand to touch his arm.

“James -” she starts. “I am sorry. If you do not wish to discuss this, I can go, but -” 

“It was about Thomas.” He cuts her off, the words abrupt, his hands balling themselves in the sheets. “You were close enough to the mark when you guessed that our dreams were similar. You dream of Silver - you loved him, and you lost him and I -” He stops, and she knows that he will not continue - not without great effort. He swallows hard, and she is surprised to see a sheen forming in his eyes, his lips trembling almost imperceptibly. If he goes on telling her about this, he is going to weep - and she would not force him to confession in this way for all the world. She squeezes the arm that her hand is still resting on, and sits forward.

“Tell me about him,” she says, and James turns to look at her, surprise flickering through his eyes.

“About Thomas?” he asks, and she nods.

“You have said that he would have liked to know me. What manner of English Lord would look forward to meeting someone with whom he had so very little in common?”  

The question is not just a distraction - she is genuinely curious and has been since Silver mentioned the man that James has never ceased to grieve all these years. She remembers wondering, when she first learned of him, what kind of man could possibly have been a match for Flint’s intelligence - for his cunning, his rage - all the things that had caused her to distrust him for the first months of their acquaintance. Now - now she wonders about the man who was the other half of James’ soul, who must have matched him in his sarcastic humor and passion for justice, who must have admired his talent for winning men to his cause just as she does and not for the first time, she wonders what news Jack Rackham will return with - what manner of man he might be bringing with him to her island. She wonders if he will be the man James remembers or another entirely - whether he will have broken or done as his lover and found the spark of fury that can sustain or consume with its intensity.

The man who might know the answer to that question best still sits in the bed, still silent, surprised at her question. She can see him trying to find words - to describe, perhaps, or to deny her an answer or simply to question her motives in asking.

“You truly wish to know about him?” he asks finally, and she nods.

“Yes. A man who had everything to lose and very little to gain by standing as champion for those who have no power, and did so all the same - that is a man I would very much like to hear about, if you will tell me.”

There is silence between them for a moment. James appears to be thinking - appears to be considering, and then - 

“Have you ever read Aurelius’ Meditations?”  

“Marcus Aurelius?”  

James makes a sound of agreement, and she shakes her head. 

“I do not believe so.”

“He once wrote, ‘The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.’ It was Thomas’ guiding philosophy in life. He -” James stops as his voice begins to crack and he looks away for a moment, getting hold of his emotions once more. “I’ve never understood how he could be as good - as _kind_ as he was,” he continues at last. “By all rights he should have been no different than his father. He’d had every reason to become another Alfred, and yet -” He shakes his head, and when he speaks again, his voice is quiet, aching with longing that takes Madi’s breath and squeezes her heart in her chest. “He could walk into a room and have everyone in it hanging on his every word within a few moments. He had a way of seeing to the heart of things like no one else I’ve ever known and he wouldn’t give up until everyone else had seen it too. He was -”  

“Unique,” she fills in softly, when he does not continue.

“Brilliant - like sunlight shining into a dark room and illuminating everything in it to be seen and understood,” he agrees, voice rough with pain. “When they took him from me - from us - I swore I would do whatever it took to bring him back. When we received word that he was dead -” His hands clench in the blankets again and he looks away, his breath shuddering as it leaves him. “There’s nothing I would not have done to save him,” he chokes out finally. “If I had known how - if there had been a way - and now I sit here and I wonder if -” He stops again, unable to continue, and Madi understands.  

“You wonder if there was a way all these years,” she finishes. “You wonder if he will hate you for not knowing. You wonder if it is more painful to think it all a lie, or the truth,” she finishes, and James clenches his teeth, nodding tightly. An angry scowl forms on his face.  

“He knew what this would do to me,” he grinds out. “He knew that even the suspicion would make me pause, make me question. He _knew_ and he fucking -” He passes a shaking hand over his face, and when he lowers it, there is something lost in his gaze. “If he lied, I don’t know what I’ll do to him for it. Deception of that magnitude demands an answer of some kind. But if he told the truth -”  

“It would be worse, in a way,” Madi points out. “If he told the truth - then he not only kept the knowledge from you but he left an innocent man in a terrible place. Even if you believe him when he says that he did so to protect both of us -” James shakes his head. 

“I don’t know what to believe any longer,” he admits. They sit, silent, for a moment, and then Madi speaks up again. 

“You likened Thomas to the sunlight,” she says. “I cannot bring him to you right now, but sunlight - that I can provide. You have been alone in the dark for far too long and I would like to go for a walk. Come with me.” She stands. Her sentence is not entirely metaphorical - there is little, she has found, that is not helped by a dose of sunlight, from sadness to anger or the mix of the two, and it has been too long since anyone has seen James on his feet. She does not wish to provoke questions by keeping him sequestered - the last thing they need at the moment is a misunderstanding between her people and his. She makes her way out the door and hears him leave the bed, following her out the door once he has pulled his boots on.

She intends to make it a short walk. James has not had much by way of physical activity since his victory over the Governor, and she can see by the way he moves that he is still sore. The bruises that had been so obvious a week earlier have dissipated somewhat, but she can still see hints of yellow and purple at the neckline of his shirt and so she knows that he is not entirely healed. Then, too, James does not appear spectacularly comfortable with the attention they are earning from the men in the streets.

There is a reason that Madi has asked him to accompany her. Since the victory, there have been many pirates telling tales of the battle - and of Flint’s heroics. The tale has spread throughout the camp, cheered many men - given them cause to hope, and it is that very force that she has harnessed to argue for the viability of their war. The pirates have been supportive - but there is only so long they can go without their leader - without seeing the man who has made their capture of Rogers possible, succeeded in taking Nassau from him not once but twice. She has been counting, in some measure, upon James’ ability to look the conquering hero in front of his men, and while she would not say that he is disappointing her in that expectation -

“Is something the matter, Captain?” she asks. James looks to her, taking a moment away from his uneasy observation of the path before them and the people in it, and shakes his head. 

“Not - as such, no,” he answers, walking along beside her. “Not wrong. Different. More than a bit unnerving if I’m being honest.”

“In what way?”

He waits until they pass another group of pirates, and then turns back slightly, gesturing with the fingers of one hand.

“You see those men back there?” he asks, and she nods. “Half a year ago, those men were ready to see me hung from my own yard arm.”

“They mutinied?”

He nods, makes an affirmative sound.

“To a man,” he answers. “I walked away from that with a bullet wound in one shoulder and only one man on the entire ship who hadn’t assisted them in putting it there and today -” He gestures again expressively to another group of men sitting around an open fire. One of the men turns - his face splits wide in a grin at the sight of his captain and a shout goes up. Bottles are raised in celebration, and Madi smiles, the cheering for Flint raising her spirits considerably. It seems, however, to have the opposite effect on James. He turns back to her, a frown on his face.

“That’s the third one since we started this outing,” he murmurs.

“Your men respect you. Many owe you their lives. This bothers you?”

James appears to wrestle with the question for a moment, and then gives a huff of what might almost be frustration, running a hand over his head where the hair is slowly beginning to grow out. Madi wonders what it will look like if he continues to allow it to lengthen.

“I’m not accustomed to it anymore,” he answers, and she understands.

“You are accustomed to mistrust,” she says, and he snorts.

“I’ve had eleven years of it.”

“And before that?”

He frowns.

“Before that,” he says, and then turns, his gaze sifting through the crowd behind them. “Before that I certainly never had my own personal guards,” he says, his eyes lighting on Mǎnu and Afúom, still following behind them faithfully as she has instructed. “This _isn’t_ necessary.”  

“They stay,” she tells him in no uncertain terms. James’ frown intensifies.  

“Those two men could be -” he starts.

“As long as Long John Silver remains on this island, those two men have no better task than guarding you from him,” she cuts him off. “I do not know what his plans may be, but I know him well enough to know that he has plans, and I will not trust that killing you is no longer a part of them.” He gives her a startled look, taking in the calm resolution on her face, and says nothing, the look on his face asking the question he will not without him ever saying a word.

“You saved my life,” she says quietly. “Allow me to guard yours in return.”  

He stares at her for another moment, understanding stealing across his face. His brows furrow, but not in a frown, this time - they twitch, and to Madi’s eyes, he suddenly appears somewhat touched at this simplest of gestures.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, taking his eyes off his new bodyguards. He opens his mouth as if to speak again, and then seems to think better of it, instead offering her his arm somewhat awkwardly. The gesture looks as if he has almost forgotten how to make it, and yet nevertheless he does, as if speechlessness has left him only proper etiquette to fall back on, as profoundly out of place as it is here, on this island. She takes it, her hand resting gently on his forearm, and they continue their walk in silence, only occasionally broken by the shouts of pirates and even a few Maroons as they move toward the edge of the camp.

They go further than she expects. James Flint, she has discovered, is nothing if not both stubborn and extremely energetic - given, she has found, to using physical activity as a sort of antidote to sorrow and to exhaustion both. Today is no different - they make it to the bluff above the camp before he shows any sign of stopping or tiring, and the latter is evident only because she knows to look for the telltale tightening around his eyes and the familiar set of his mouth - although, she suddenly realizes, she may in this case be looking at grief rather than fatigue. The symptoms are much the same, and coming here is certainly cause for grief for him particularly.

“He once asked what I saw, when I looked over the horizon from here,” James says, and she glances at the sun - glances at the position of it, and then looks over the horizon.

“Nassau,” she answers, and James turns, gives her an appreciative look.

“I should’ve brought _you_ up here and taught you to fight,” he says, and she smiles at him.  

“There is still time, if you wish it,” she offers, and he raises an eyebrow.

“Your people are arguing over the treaty as we speak,” he answers, and she shrugs.

“For now,” she answers. “If it is not ratified, then we are at war again. If it is -” She turns to look out over the island. “For so long, we were safe here because we were unknown. Because we were unseen. If the war ends, and the treaty is ratified, there will be those among your people who will ask how that was. They will wish to know whether there could be other such unknown places - and they will begin searching. How long before they find those other places? How long before they decide that our island is but the public face of this war - that any attempts by other islands to defend their own is just another aspect of our resistance? How long before they declare the peace null and void and we are left to defend ourselves again?”

“You could move camp,” James suggests, and she nods.

“Yes. And we may. But if we cannot find a place to house our people - if we cannot find another such place to disappear without bringing danger to other camps similar to our own -” She lets the sentence trail, and he frowns.

“You think they will vote for the treaty,” he says quietly, and she has no answer for him, save a look that is full of apology and regret and frustration to match his own. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

“And the pirates on the island?” he asks.

“They will be pardoned. We can ask that, with Governor Rogers in our custody and his men in our cages. Or simply given time to flee, if that is their wish. I do not wish this outcome. I have argued against it so many times, but -”

“But command does not come without sacrifice and there is a limit to even your authority,” he acknowledges, and she nods.

“When Rogers first proposed the treaty, I told him I would not take it. I told him what I thought of his agreement. Now it seems I have no choice.” 

He stands for a moment, staring over the bluff, toward the horizon, silent, and she cannot say what is going through his mind. Grief, perhaps. Anger. All of the things she has felt since she first realized that despite her best efforts, the war is going to end. Finally, he clears his throat again, and when he speaks, his voice is quiet, tired, rough with emotion. 

“I don’t know what I’m expecting to see on that horizon,” he says, and the change in subject does not startle her - there is nothing left to say. “Black sails, perhaps. When Rackham returns -”

She takes two steps forward, and takes hold of his arm, not roughly but firmly all the same.

“No one is jumping off any cliffs,” she says heatedly. “No matter the outcome of Captain Rackham’s mission. Did you not hear me when I spoke?”

He turns to her. 

“I don’t imagine that there will be much room for a wanted pirate here or anywhere else in the West Indies once this treaty goes through,” he says. “Much less for the likes of Captain Flint. I’ll -” 

“ _Y_ _ou_ will be integral to the talks with Britain, and we will come to no agreement that does not include you,” she says, cutting him off. “The war may be over but we are far from safe, as you well know. This island must still be supplied. The other settlements must still be warned, their people prepared for England to arrive on their shores. They will need you - _I_ will need you.” He looks at her, and she meets his gaze, the weariness in his gaze countered by the fierceness of hers. “Don’t go,” she tells him. “Do not allow Silver to take this from us as well. Stay, and be the man who forced England to sue for terms in return for the life of their Governor. Stay and be the man who forced the British to acknowledge him as an opponent rather than a monster. Stay.”

James - goes still. There is something in his eyes - something that she barely recognizes, a kind of blazing thing that has suddenly kindled there, and she hears the moment his breath catches - the moment that he blinks, an odd expression flitting over his face, made of equal parts shocked realization and sudden, bright hope.

“You would ask me to help you negotiate the terms of the treaty. You would ask me to live here - on this island. As your - general?” There is something almost disbelieving in his voice, and he is looking at her as if seeing her for the first time.

“As someone I care for,” she corrects, “and my general, and why not? You are a part of this - an ally to my people and no friend to England nor subject of theirs. If my people wish to negotiate with England, I cannot stop them, but as their leader, it is my duty to ensure that they do not come to regret their decision years from now. The man who defeated a colonial governor and took control of Nassau successfully is someone my people will listen to when he speaks - someone whose orders they will obey in military matters as long as it is clear that my mother still rules the island. If you do not agree to remain…” She looks at him, suddenly bereft of words. She does not wish to speak the sentence that will bring home the bleakness of their situation. If James does not agree to remain, then she herself will have to organize the defense of her island, and she does not have the experience for it, any more than do Julius or her mother, and she would not trust any other pirate enough to ask.

“You began this war with the intention of seeing Nassau secured,” she says. “A year ago, you did not seek anything beyond that goal - the dream of a free island, where men and women could live in peace without the threat of England and her laws. Our larger goals may be beyond our reach for the time being, but this - this island - it can be as you dreamt it. If you will help me to create it. This can be home - for both of us.”

He is still looking at her, and he swallows hard, opens his mouth, visibly searches for words for a moment.

“Thomas,” James says finally, “would have loved this place.” His voice is a croak, almost, and he clears his throat, squeezes his eyes closed for a moment. He takes a deep breath. “He would have loved it here,” he repeats, and his tone is more sure, his green eyes fixed on her. “He would have seen it as an example of the merits of good governance - the sort of society he wished to create in Nassau. He -” He stops for a moment, looking around. “He would have wished to see it defended,” he finishes quietly. “I don’t know what he would think of what I’ve done - what he would make of me, but I know this. He would have loved you.” He straightens slightly, and then he turns, away from the sea, deliberately turning his back on the cliff. “I have a few things to retrieve from Nassau,” he tells her. “Things that belonged to Miranda and Thomas, if they’re still there. The house burned but some part of the things in the cellar must have survived - Avery’s journals, at least, which means the rest is likely there as well. I’ll -” He stops. “I’ll need a few days,” he says, and she nods.

“Of course.” The relief that washes over her is strong, undeniable, overwhelming. Whatever else he has decided about the course of his life, James has decided to stay - she can see it in the set of his shoulders, in the way that some of the tension has left his bearing, in the way that his gaze rests on her, somewhat bewildered still but less despairing now that he is no longer at odds and ends, fishing for purpose, for direction, struggling to find his footing after having it torn out from under him. She will not be left alone in this endeavor, and the realization is enough to cause her to take a step forward, wrapping her arms around his middle and squeezing tightly. He tenses at first, startled, and then slowly, she feels one of his arms rise to return the gesture, tentative but comforting nonetheless.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, and she feels the arm tighten around her back. “I cannot do this alone. To face the prospect -”

“It’s a long way from the war I promised you,” he says quietly, voice laced with apology. “I know it’s -”

“Whatever it is, it will be better when faced with a partner,” she answers him.  “It may take time, but we will have it. I only wish -” She stops. She wishes many things, but some of her wishes, she is coming to realize, cannot come to pass. She shakes her head, but James still seems to catch the train of her thoughts.

“I wish I could tell you that it will pass,” he tells her, and she closes her eyes.

“I never thought I would envy you,” she says softly, and he starts. “Your Thomas,” she clarifies, pulling back a bit, “he never betrayed you. He never lied to you - never -”

“Madi -” James starts.

The sound of a horn being blown startles them both.

“Sails sighted!” The cry that reaches them causes them both to stiffen, to pull away, looking at one another with expressions of equal surprise. “Sails! The Lion has been spotted approaching from the North!”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! The big reunion you've all been waiting for! 
> 
> As usual, the amazing gif for this chapter was done by the lovely Bean (@bean-about-townn).

The island is a paradise of green.

Thomas remembers the first glimpse he had had of the New World, stumbling off of a ship after two months at sea. The sight had all but brought him to tears, the reality of green, growing things replacing the grey stone of his cell in Bedlam and the creaking wood of the tiny cabin aboard the ship that he had been chained in almost too much to process. He had been a wreck, physically and mentally at the time. Had he seen the Maroons’ island at the time of his release, he is reasonably certain the sight would have overwhelmed him entirely. As it is, he finds himself staring but for a different reason entirely.

“You won’t be able to see anything from here,” Jack Rackham says from his right. “The camp is further in. They’ll have spotted us, though - our escort will be waiting. They know me, fortunately for you.” He raises a hand, waving to their unseen watchers, and then lowers it. “A word to the wise - the men escorting us will have absolutely no sense of humor. Do try not to anger them. The condition was that I bring you back in one piece if you were to be found.” He looks around. “Still can’t believe we won the first battle here. By all rights it should have been a slaughter, and yet somehow we did it. Then again - Flint always did have the Devil’s own luck.” He turns to Thomas and seems to register that his words have been largely missed, and clucks his tongue, shaking his head slightly. “Max will never believe it,” he mutters, and then their escort is walking toward them out of the brush, and Thomas steps toward them, away from the beach, away from the sea, and toward James, closer now than he has been in eleven years.

*************************************************************

He should be waiting for the boats to return.

His first instinct had been to return to the hut. There is nothing to be gained, he reasons, from torturing himself. Jack Rackham will return on one of those boats, he will look up at James, and shake his head, perhaps still staring at him in confusion, and James cannot promise himself that he will not break down weeping on the spot. He cannot allow that, of course - whatever his men think of him, whatever good will he has built with them, is dependent upon the image they have formed of a man in control of himself, able to keep going through pain and suffering and even defeat, and he cannot throw that away by breaking down in front of them. If he ever wants to captain a ship again - to have anyone take orders from him again -

He passes a hand over his face. He does not know that he actually wants that. He has effectively told Madi he will serve as her military advisor and yet there is a small part of him that still cries out to be finished with this - to disappear into obscurity, or perhaps go to sea one last time and see if he cannot let Captain Flint go at last in the place where he had come from. He does not know where he wishes to be six months from now, unless -

Unless desperate wishes can become reality, and speaking of wishes, James knows where he wishes to be right now. If he is honest with himself - if he allows the small voice that has been shouting at him since Silver’s attempt at disposing of him to speak its mind - then he must acknowledge that he wants, more than anything right now, possibly more than anything he has ever wanted before in his life, to be standing with Madi, waiting while the boats come in. He wants to stand there, to see a familiar blond head among the sea of unfamiliar faces - to lay eyes on Thomas’ features once again and know him safe. He wants to believe in the possibility of the reunion he has been denied, these many years (and in his head he counts the years, the months, the days again, leading up to this one, including those three months away from Thomas’ side). He wants -

 _“Thomas died in a cold, dark place.”_ Miranda’s voice echoes through his head, and he closes his eyes, hands gripping the back of a chair that sits next to the small desk he has claimed as his own while he is here. He would give anything to have those words be untrue - to have the image of Thomas, alone, cold, frightened, and desperate wiped from his mind by the reality of his lover alive and before him. He would give anything to be able to drop to his knees before Thomas and beg for forgiveness - to apologize a thousand times for ever leaving England, for allowing him to spend these many years imprisoned, and he would give still more for those apologies to be accepted, though he knows it is a faint and fading hope. And yet -

He stands in the hut that has become his home here on the island and curses himself for a fool for entertaining this possibility. It is foolishness in the extreme - the hope of a man who has abandoned reason in the face of loss and fled to the realm of fantasy, and he knows it. He has come back here, to this hut, in an attempt to force himself back to the path of logic and sober understanding of the way the world functions and yet all he can hear is Peter Ashe’s voice begging him to wait and all he can see is Miranda’s face, asking him in his fevered dreams to stay the course, not to give up. What had that dream been about if not his own mind telling him these many months that something is not right, that something simply does not add up with the reality that he has accepted for the past decade? What if it is not simply Silver’s words giving him the hope but his own suspicions? What if -?

He lets out a low, frustrated huff of breath and turns toward the door. It is no good standing here debating endlessly with himself. He will have his answer, sooner rather than later, and end this torture, one way or the other. If it hurts, then so be it - it will be nothing compared to the pain of losing Thomas the first time.

***************************************************************

“Any sign of them yet?”

Madi turns at the sound of James’ voice behind her, surprised.

“You said you would wait inside,” she says, and watches a look of slight embarrassment flash across his face.

“I changed my mind,” he murmurs, and says nothing more, turning to watch the lake. His arms are folded firmly behind him, and she can see the tension he feels in the line of his back, in the way his jaw clenches. She watches him for a moment, and he seems to sense it. He turns his head toward her briefly and she can see the furrow between his brows. He begins to open his mouth to say something - a question, perhaps, as to why she is standing here as well, waiting on the boats to arrive just as he is, and then the sound of water rippling and paddles moving through the water reaches their ears, and they turn back as one, spotting the boats that have rounded the corner and are approaching swiftly. For one moment, Madi wishes that she had a spyglass - she can spot individual men in the canoes, but cannot see their faces, and she wonders if she will know, or if -

There is a sharp gasp next to her and she turns.

“James -?” she starts, and then understands. “He is there.” It is not a question. James’ face has transformed before her eyes, all traces of wary disbelief gone, replaced by the kind of wonder she has seldom seen but on the newly freed. He is leaning forward, his white-knuckled hands gripping the railing before him, and his wide eyes are watching one of the boats - the one carrying a tall, blond Englishman, sitting in front of Jack Rackham, his gaze fixed on James just as surely. She hears James barely breathe a name - hears the whisper of “Thomas” that passes his lips, and then her friend is moving, shoving people out of the way, heading for the shore as if being pulled by an outside force, stumbling over his own boots and over the sand in his haste to reach the man he has thought dead for over a decade.

*************************************************

His heart feels as though it might just possibly beat its way out of his chest.

He spots Thomas’ face - sees him, and for a moment, he wonders if he is imagining things. He wonders whether he has conjured his lover out of thin air by sheer wanting and then -

And then he spots the beard, and the hint of grey that is working its way into his hair. He spots the lines produced by age and grief and that is not a detail he would imagine - not something he has ever pictured, convinced as he has been that Thomas had died hideously young, and he knows. This is real. He is not imagining things, Thomas is here, and James is too far away - one inch between them at this moment is too damned far. His feet are moving almost before he knows it, taking him through the crowd, and he is still too tired for this running but he does not care because Thomas is alive and well and gripping the sides of the canoe, levering himself out. His feet hit the water of the lake shore with a splash and he hurries forward, the sheer joy on his face matching James’ own. They meet almost before the canoe can touch ground, James moving through water that reaches up to his calves to reach Thomas’ side. There is no hesitation. Thomas reaches out, wraps his arms around James, and-

It has been eleven years, and James can breathe again. He is weeping, crying harder than he has ever done in his life, and he can feel Thomas’ shoulders shaking as well, mouth open in a joyous laugh next to James’ ear as James wraps a hand around the back of his lover’s head and yet finally there is air. The world rights itself and for the first time in a decade, he can think and feel without the clawing, awful thing that has been eating him from the inside since Thomas was taken. He can feel Thomas’ hands move, never losing contact with him, and then they are on the back of his head cupping it gently, Thomas’ forehead is pressed against his, and James is repeating the motion. They stand for a moment, simply breathing in sync, and then Thomas opens his eyes again to meet James’.

“You’re real,” James murmurs, and Thomas nods, wordless, then bends, his nose brushing James’ cheek as he brings their lips together. He is really, truly here, and James finds himself overwhelmed, enveloped in a hundred different sensations he never thought to feel again. He opens his mouth, deepening the kiss, and spends several moments reacquainting himself with the taste of Thomas, with the way that his hands feel touching James, with the texture of his hair and the feeling of his skin under James’ palm and the way that he breathes, imprinting them once again on his memory. Thomas’ tongue laves the roof of James’ mouth and he gives a near-silent, breathless sound of joy and longing and relief all rolled into one, the sound muffled almost entirely in James’ mouth. They are both panting for breath by the time they pull back, and James is grinning like an idiot but he does not care one jot because there is no trace of the anger James had feared in Thomas’ kiss. There is nothing of anger in his eyes, or in the way that his hands touch James’ face - no anger in Thomas’ laughter, music to James’ ears after so long without it. He has feared it for so long - dreamt of it that very morning and yet Thomas stands before him and there is no condemnation to be found. There are tears running down both their cheeks; the way that the skin around Thomas’ eyes crinkles when he smiles is the same and James loves it. He cups Thomas’ cheek with one hand, lost for words, and Thomas leans into the touch, a small shudder going through him.

“I had rehearsed what I was going to say,” he murmurs, eyes closed once again, James’ hand still on his cheek. “I had it all planned out and -”

His voice is the same. Somewhere deep down, James has feared hearing it changed - roughened, perhaps, from whatever horrors they have inflicted upon Thomas, from begging and screaming in alternate turns, but Thomas still sounds like himself, and the familiar timbre of his voice sets fresh tears running down James’ face. Thomas opens his eyes, perhaps at the hitch in James’ breath, and shakes his head.

“It’s not important,” he finishes his sentence, and instead wraps his arms around James again, simply holding onto him for several long moments, not saying a word - not recriminating or demanding answers the way James has feared he will. It is too much - he cannot absorb the ease of Thomas’ forgiveness, and he weeps, clinging to Thomas with all his strength.

“I’m sorry,” he sobs into Thomas’ shoulder. “God, I’m so sorry. I should’ve come. I was going to come for you - Peter told us -”

Thomas shakes his head, or tries to, his face still buried in James’ shoulder.

“No,” he says, muffled by James’ shirt, and then raises his head, looking James straight in the eye. “No,” he repeats. “James - dear God, there’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“I abandoned you -”

“On my own orders,” Thomas answers him. “James - “ The name coming from his lips sounds like a prayer of some kind, and James feels a chill run down his spine at the sound of it. Thomas moves his hands until one sits on either of James’ shoulders, and he stands, simply looking at James for a moment - taking in James’ shaved head, the earring, the healing scrapes and cuts on his scalp and face, and he opens his mouth, seemingly searching for words. “I’m sorry,” he whispers at last. “God, I’m so, so sorry. Did this - well, of course it bloody hurt -” he mutters, brushing one thumb over the scar on James’ cheek.

“Not a tenth as much as losing you,” James answers, and a stricken look flashes across Thomas’ face. His grip tightens, and he swallows hard.

“Jesus,” he whispers quietly, his grip on James’ shoulders tightening. “James, I -”

James shakes his head.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he says. “Nothing. Just - don’t ever give me orders like those again. I won’t obey them next time.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Thomas promises. The hands that are gripping him are callused, James realizes for the first time - every bit as work-hardened as James’ own, and he can feel an unfamiliar ridge under his fingertips through the shirt, scar tissue, he’s willing to bet, and the thought sends anger burning through him. “I’m sorry, James.” Thomas’ voice is as tear-laden as James’, and God, James has not heard it sound like this, not since the first night they had been together and Thomas had wept from happiness. “I did this,” Thomas continues. “I fucking ruined your life and I’m sorry -”

“No.” The word comes out sharp and swift and James grips his lover’s shoulders firmly. “Thomas -” He would give the world to say that name over and over and over again until it no longer hurts - until it sinks in that the man it refers to is here in front of him, but there are other things to say right now. He looks at Thomas for a moment, and when he speaks again, his voice is shaking. “I have done horrible things, since I lost you,” he confesses. “Things I can’t ever undo, and I can’t tell you how much I wish I could, but -” Thomas starts to open his mouth - starts to speak, and James continues, overriding him. If he stops now, he might never be able to continue. “There are some parts of it I won’t apologize for,” he says roughly. Here it is - the moment that Thomas may turn away from him forever, but he must tell him the truth. He has always emphasized forgiveness for those who repent, and James -

James is anything but repentant, in some respects.

“I killed your father,” he blurts out, “and I’m not sorry for it. I don’t know who convinced you that this was your fault but -”

“I’ve been meaning to thank you for that,” Thomas interrupts, and James pauses, breath stolen, shock running through him.

“Thank me for it?” he chokes out, and Thomas nods.

“You cannot know,” he says, as if he is not dismantling a knot of guilt and horror that is six years in the making, “how very timely it was. You saved my life.” The words leave his lips, and James -

James stops breathing. He stops talking, stops cataloging every tiny thing about Thomas for one second, simply - stops, and stares at his lover, wide-eyed.

“What?” he asks. His voice is small, startled, almost frightened, and Thomas gives him a small smile.

“You’re the reason I was transferred - the reason Peter was able to petition the board of governors for my release,” he answers. “If you hadn’t done it - I don’t know that I would have survived in there much longer. Thank you.”

“I -” James starts, still staring.

“You saved me,” Thomas repeats. “If you’re waiting for me to berate you, James, I’m not going to do it. He’s dead - and God help me, I’m grateful for it. Captain Rackham has told me about the rest.”

James can feel his knees trying to wobble. He can feel the way that he is staring at Thomas, open-mouthed, and he tries to recover - tries to do something other than sob in gratitude of his own. He looks at Thomas’ face - at Thomas’ bearded, sun-tanned face, at the scars he can see on Thomas’ arms where his sleeves have been rolled past his elbows, and he meets Thomas’ eyes, understanding making its way through the daze of joy and wonder and shock.

“Neither one of us are the men we remember,” Thomas says quietly, and James shakes his head.

“No,” he acknowledges. “No we’re not, and thank God for that.” His voice is trembling a bit, still, but he’s steadier on his feet, and he takes a deep breath. “Peter Ashe,” he murmurs. “He knew. The bastard knew, and he -” He looks at Thomas, and sees the grief that flashes through his lover’s eyes. “He betrayed us,” James tells him, and Thomas nods.

“Yes. I assume -?”

“He killed Miranda,” James answers, and Thomas bows his head, breathing hard, hands still resting on James’ shoulders. When he looks up, there is something hard and cold in his gaze.

“I heard of his death,” he says. “At the time I thought -” He shakes his head. “He paid for it?” he asks, and James nods. “Good.” It is not happiness in Thomas’ voice, but a sort of grim satisfaction, and James cannot help the relief that washes through him at the sound of it. He pulls Thomas closer, and they cling to one another for another moment, united in grief and joy before pulling apart again.

“God, I’ve missed you,” James says roughly, and Thomas lets out a small laugh.

“So have I. I never thought -” He stops abruptly, and James turns, seeing Thomas’ gaze focus over his shoulder suddenly.

“This reunion,” Madi says, a trace of amusement and fondness in her voice, “would perhaps be better continued indoors - unless you wish to ruin your boots entirely.”

James looks down. He is, he suddenly recalls, standing in water that comes nearly up to his knees. They both are. He flashes Thomas a rueful expression, and feels the corner of his mouth turn upward again when Thomas returns it.

“It’s a pity Charles isn’t here,” Jack Rackham’s voice drawls. “He would now owe me several dollars.” James turns, surprised, and finds the other captain leaning against one of the boats, one eyebrow raised. “We had a bet, back before this all began,” Jack explains. “He thought you were wound so tightly because you’re ex-Navy, I said you were in desperate need of a good fuck. I was -”

Thomas laughs, the sound coming burbling out of him as if he had not expected it, and Jack stops, seeing the look on James’ face, as irritated as James can possibly be with Thomas standing next to him, still touching him, and his mouth still trying to form itself into a smile such as James has rarely given anyone these past months.

“Yes, well,” Rackham continues. “Congratulations and all that. Your Highness, if I might have a word -?”

“In a few moments,” Madi answers, and turns back to James and Thomas, a smile on her face.

“Lord Hamilton,” she greets, and Thomas stares, visibly struck.

“Good God,” he says finally, “that’s -” He releases a huff of breath - part of a laugh, really. “I’ve not heard that for years,” he says, and James privately thinks he will never, ever get over seeing Thomas smile or hearing him speak again.

“Then it is time someone called you by it,” Madi says. “James has told me about you. I am glad for his sake that you are alive.”

Thomas is staring at her, something like amazement traveling across his narrow face, and James squeezes his arm.

“Thomas,” he says quietly, “this is Madi. She -”

“I am quite certain he knows who I am,” Madi says, and Thomas nods wordlessly. He does not let go of James - he cannot, any more than James can release him, but he does dip his head respectfully.

“I understand that you engineered my rescue.” The words sound a trifle rough, rife as they are with emotion, but Madi does not seem to mind.

“I could do no less for James,” she answers, and the words bring a smile to Thomas’ lips.

“He has that effect,” he agrees. “Regardless, I - cannot thank you enough. If there is anything -”

“We will discuss it later,” she assures, and Thomas nods. He seems almost - reassured, somehow, and James realizes with a start that his lover has been waiting to see the price tag for his freedom.

“Madi -” James starts to say, and she raises a hand.

“Nothing more strenuous than a review of a few documents,” she promises. There is a gleam in her eye, and James abruptly understands what she intends.

“You’re a devious woman,” he tells her, and she smiles.

“I will take that as a compliment,” she answers.

“It’s meant to be one.”

“Good. Then we are agreed. James - I am certain the journey has been tiring. If you would like to retire to your quarters -?”

He dips his head in acknowledgment and turns to Thomas, a rueful grin on his face.

“I’d like to continue this where we can speak properly,” he says, and Thomas nods. If they walk side by side such that neither has to lose track of the other despite the narrowness of the path or if their hands twine together on the way to James’ hut, neither one of them mentions it.

***************************************************************

“I believe I’ve fulfilled my half of the bargain,” Rackham murmurs next to Madi, and she turns to him.

“You have,” she acknowledges. She does not say another word, waiting for the pirate captain to break - as he inevitably does.

“Your people will sign the treaty?” he asks, and she nods.

“I believe they will, yes. Against my wishes. You will have the concessions you bargained for.”

Rackham looks almost surprised.

“Truly?” he asks. “It’s that easy?” She nods, and he makes an odd face. “It’s almost too simple,” he murmurs, and she frowns.

“I can make further demands,” she offers, and he shakes his head.

“No no no. That’s - quite alright, thank you. I don’t suppose -?”

“You are welcome to stay on the island until the treaty is signed,” she tells him. “Keep your men under control and away from the prisoners.”

“Mr. Silver?” Rackham asks. She closes her eyes.

“We are not discussing Mr. Silver,” she says quietly. “He remains where he is for the time being. My people will decide his fate - as will Captain Flint.”

Rackham stands and looks at her for a moment, and then he shakes his head.

“I’d always thought him a smart man,” he murmurs. “Just goes to show that I am, occasionally, very wrong. Good afternoon, your Highness.” He turns, and leaves, and Madi takes another deep breath, and another. She can do this - she has already done this. It will infuriate Julius. It will please her mother, and she knows whose opinion matters most to her in this moment. One way or another, her people will thrive, treaty or no. This day has ensured it. Let John Silver and anyone else who would stand in her way see it and despair.

******************************************************

_Several hours later:_

 

He has forgotten what it is to feel like this.

It has been so very long since he has been home. It is a word that he has nearly forgotten the meaning of, so very bereft has he been of such a place for so long. The last time he had one, it had smelled of Miranda's perfume - of books and polished wood and good brandy and a hundred other scents, and he had been ripped from it - from the people who made it his home - one winter's night, never to return. He has not belonged anywhere since - not Bethlem, certainly. Not the plantation where he had had quarters that were nominally his and yet so very far from anything he would ever have referred to as home as to be on another planet altogether. Now, though -

Home, he has decided, is a feeling - one that washes over him as he steps through the door of the small hut that James has led him to. It is the smell of James as Thomas sits down next to him on the bed and trails kisses down his neck when they have talked themselves hoarse. It is the softness of an actual mattress beneath him as they lay back on that bed, beginning to run fingers over skin - as James runs a hand through his hair, as he allows that hand to then travel beneath his shirt, his eyes on Thomas the entire time, seeking permission, a sort of wonder on his face that Thomas feels in himself as well. Home. It is the feeling of James' fingers discovering the scars on his torso - the ugly, horrible things that Thomas has tried to ignore for the past decade - tracing over them gently, front and back and ghosting up to the ones on his neck and the look in James' eyes as he then directs Thomas' own questing fingers to the ridge of scar tissue that crosses James' chest, to the pucker of what he can only guess to be the scar from a bullet wound, to a dozen other such marks.

"They're nothing to be ashamed of," James tells him fiercely, his hands on Thomas' waist beneath his shirt. "You're alive. Don't you dare apologize for that."

"You haven’t seen them yet," Thomas answers, and James snorts.

“I could say the same,” he answers. “If you like we can count. The one with the most scars -” He stops for a moment, and then a gleam comes into his eyes, one that Thomas recognizes from their days in London. “The one with the most scars,” James says slowly, “gets to lie back on this bed and let the loser worship every inch of him with his mouth, scars included.”   

It’s a request more than a challenge - one that goes straight to Thomas’ cock at the very thought of what James is suggesting and _Jesus_ , it has been too long since anyone made that kind of suggestion to him.

“You want to -?” he asks, just to be certain, and James nods.

“Eleven years,” he says. “There’s been no one else. I’m more than ready if you are.”  

Thomas does not respond with words - just pulls James closer, kissing him desperately, allowing him to feel what he’s done to Thomas already as their bodies press together.

“I’d say that’s a yes,” James observes dryly, and Thomas laughs, still somewhat shaky but genuine.

“You’re damned right it is.”

He sits up, and starts to reach for the hem of his shirt, and hesitates. It’s silly, he knows. James has just demonstrated that he has no particular issue with the notion of Thomas’ body having changed in the years since he’s seen it, and yet - 

He banishes the thought firmly, and yanks the shirt over his head, fighting with it where the top button of his collar has remained in its buttonhole and caught. He raises his hands, and finally succeeds in freeing his head. He sits, the shirt still covering his arms, and looks to James.

“It’s not pretty,” he warns. “I haven’t -”

He stops, words catching in his throat, and he stares at James in utter horror.

“Dear God,” he chokes, “James, what the hell happened?”

 James looks downward at himself. 

“Oh,” he says. “That.”  

 _That_ is enough to drive the breath from Thomas’ lungs entirely. It is not that James’ chest is displeasing - far from it, but the bruising on it - 

The mottling alone is horrifying. There is blue, in places, ringing smaller spots of dark purple and some yellow at the edges, spreading across his torso from his waist upward, obscuring the freckles in spots and making the red hair on his chest appear darker than Thomas knows it to be. Looking at it, Thomas cannot help but wonder how James can bear to lift his arms, let alone do anything more complicated, and he gapes. 

“It’s not as bad as it could be,” James says, shifting a little as if in embarrassment, and Thomas lifts his gaze from James’ chest to his face.  

“You look as though you’ve been set upon by ten men!” He releases the shirt that is hampering him, preventing him from reaching out to James, his concern at his own state forgotten entirely.

“More than that,” James admits, wincing. “You should have seen it a week ago. I looked -” He stops, seeing the look on Thomas’ face. “It hurts less than you would think,” he says, and Thomas takes a deep breath.  

“This - is the result of the last battle you were involved in,” Thomas states rather than asks. “Did you even think to use a weapon, or were you trying to beat them to death with your fists?”  

“I gained most of these after the battle,” James says, and Thomas starts.

“What?”

James sighs.

“Thomas -” he starts, and then shakes his head. He reaches out a hand to touch Thomas’ arm, and squeezes gently. “I’ll tell you everything,” he promises. “You know I’ve never been able to keep anything from you, but right now -” He looks up and down Thomas’ body, and when he meets Thomas’ eyes again, there is a look on his face that takes Thomas’ breath away again for an entirely different reason. “Christ,” he breathes, and Thomas shudders, the want in his lover’s voice starting a familiar heat traveling through him.

“Are those going to hurt too much for this?” Thomas asks, his voice gone husky, gesturing to the bruises, and James shakes his head. 

“I’ve taken a Spanish man o’war nearly single-handed with worse than this, and I say single-handed literally,” he says, and Thomas’ brows furrow.

“James -” he starts, and then, slowly, he shakes his head as well, reluctant laughter starting somewhere deep down inside him and working its way to the surface. “I love you,” he says, and means it. The man in front of him is - truly, utterly impossible, stubborn and insanely hardy both in body and spirit and Thomas adores him every bit as much as he did those many years ago, for much the same reasons. “I love you,” he repeats, and then he’s moving forward, gently taking hold of James’ shoulders, and drawing him in for a kiss.  

“Thomas,” James breathes, and his name in James’ mouth is a prayer. “I love you too.” His voice is rough now, emotion-filled, and he takes a deep breath, almost weeping. “ _God_ I love you. I know I didn’t say it often enough before, but I -” 

Thomas kisses him again, and then James’ hands begin to rove over Thomas’ chest, and Thomas gasps into the kiss as those clever fingers find his nipple and pinch lightly. He moves one of his hands to James’ waist, and the other he uses to grip James’ arm, holding onto him while Thomas begins to kiss his way up James’ neck. James’ hands rub downwards, warm and callused, over his ribcage, as Thomas begins to mouth over James’ jawline at the corner where the beard does not cover his skin, right over the pulse point. James tilts his head back, closing his eyes for a moment, and Thomas feels James grip his waist, a small, needy moan coming from him. Thomas lowers one hand to James’ crotch and begins to massage, feeling his member begin to respond, and grins against James’ skin at the second moan, louder and more desperate. There is no one to hear them, this time - no one to hide from, and it is a fact that Thomas intends to take full advantage of - as, apparently, does James, as he retaliates by sliding his hands under Thomas breeches, his palms gliding over Thomas’ arse. He squeezes, and Thomas arches into the touch with a louder gasp.

“Jesus,” he groans, and James grins again as his fingers move toward Thomas’ cleft and then ghost lightly over his entrance. Thomas swears, and James laughs.

“You’re -” Thomas pants as James moves to suck at his collarbone, “bolder than I recall.”

James lifts his head, uncertainty flashing through his eyes, and Thomas takes the opportunity to kiss him again, palming over James’ cock once more.

“It’s a pleasant change,” he assures his lover, and James sighs into the kiss, the tension fleeing him, his hands giving up their determined assault on his arse to simply cup it as Thomas pushes into his mouth with his tongue. After a moment, Thomas feels James’ hands move again, coming round the front of him to begin working at the ties on his breeches. He hears the moment that the ties, already becoming somewhat fragile with age, simply give up the ghost and tear, and he does not give a damn. He never intends to wear these clothes again anyway - they were supplied by Oglethorpe and he wants to burn them at his first opportunity. He raises his head, starts to help, moving to push the breeches off his hips with one hand and reaching for the buckle on James’ belt with the other - and then hears his lover curse.

“James?” He stops, concern rushing through him, and James curses again.

“Oil!” he growls, and Thomas stares.

“You’re not saying -” he starts, and a flush moves over James’ cheeks.

“It’s not as if I’ve had any use for it!” he protests, and Thomas gives him an incredulous expression.

“James - you can’t mean to tell me that you’ve gone eleven years without so much as taking two fingers and -” He stops, looking at the expression on James’ face. “How the hell have you kept from exploding with it?” he asks, and James gives a bark of laughter.

“You assume I didn’t,” he answers dryly, and Thomas suddenly understands better. Something in the look on his face seems to get to James - he sees the look of discomfort pass over James’ face, and then his lover sits up, and Thomas catches him with one hand, holding him in place.

“Where are you going?” he asks, and James begins to pull on his boots, lying discarded on the floor next to the bed when they had first curled up and begun to talk.

“To find something to use,” he answers, and Thomas feels panic shoot through him.

“You’re leaving?” he asks, and God, he hates how he sounds in this moment, but the idea of losing sight of James is horrifying. He’s only just found him - he cannot lose him again, not even for an instant.

James seems to feel the same, judging by the look on his face.

“We can wait,” he offers. “I confess I don’t have much interest in going anywhere at the moment and getting dressed is -”

“Going to prove difficult,” Thomas says, looking downward wryly, and James’ cheeks flush.

“Apologies,” he mutters, and Thomas cannot help the laugh that escapes him.

“You’re no more sorry for it than I am,” he answers, and James -

Oh hell, that grin has always gone straight through him, and it’s worked its magic again. Thomas can feel his cock twitch at the look on James’ face, and he gives a frustrated huff.

“Damn it,” he mutters. “I’m not going to wait any longer. James - go ahead.”

“You’re certain?”

James’ hand is on his thigh, and Thomas wants - so much more contact than this. He wants James’ skin against his own - wants to see all of his lover again and to be seen, suddenly, and he cannot have what he wants unless he lets James go.

“Just - hurry back,” he says. “By the time you come back, I’ll have managed to get these off.” He sees James’ gaze flash to his breeches and stockings, and he gives James a lopsided grin. “If you’re not repulsed by the rest of me, that is,” he says. It is a joke. He can see that James is not - can see the heat in James’ gaze, and it sends a rush of corresponding warmth through him. He is wanted - the feeling is more reassuring than he can possibly express. 

“I’ll be back in five minutes,” James says. He takes a step back toward the bed, raises a hand to cup Thomas’ jaw, and then kisses him again, and Thomas gives a slight whine when he pulls away. James starts to pull his shirt on and then seems to think better of it, and instead tosses it to Thomas, who raises it to his nose to inhale the scent of his lover. Five minutes. It is not much time to undress and prepare, but he intends to make do.

*******************************************

There is, of course, a price to be paid for a late night foray into the food stores.

It seems a grand idea at first. Go to what passes for kitchens here, scrounge up something to eat, and retire to the somewhat meager quarters he is sharing with Featherstone and his bosun on this island, there to contemplate the day’s events. It seems a sound notion -  

Well, Anne has always told him that there would come a day when his nosing would lead him to information he didn’t really want to know, hasn’t she? 

“E-evening,” he stutters, and wonders, silently, why he could not have better circumstances for his death - a battle, perhaps, or drowning, or anything, anything at all other than - 

“Evening,” James Flint mutters in his direction, and goes back to his foraging, looking for all the world as if nothing were out of place.

“Was there something in particular you’re looking for?” Jack asks somewhat faintly. Dear god - the man is a walking freckle, he thinks, and attempts to find somewhere to put his eyes where he is not likely to have them plucked out of his skull for it.  

“Oil,” Flint mutters. He is bent at the waist - the bare waist, Jack thinks again, freshly taken aback at the sight, and currently looking rather irritated. “For fuck’s sake,” he mutters, and Jack -

Jack is not a fool or the former owner of a brothel for nothing.

“Assuming that you do, indeed, require it for what I assume has been a pleasurable evening thus far -” he starts, and Flint shoots him a glare - one that is lacking in its usual heat, somehow, and yet Jack does not feel the need to continue his sentence. “Second shelf on the left,” he supplies, “close to the -ah. Yes.”

Flint grabs the bottle, nods to Jack, and then he’s gone again, stalking out the door, bottle of oil in one hand, and Jack sags with relief.  

“Anne,” he murmurs, “is never finding out about this.”

**************************************************

He hurries back as quickly as possible. Truly, if he were not currently walking through the camp half-nude, he might think this all to have been a dream - in fact, he’s still not convinced that it is not. Surely he has had this one before - the dream where Thomas returns, alive miraculously after over a decade, and James wakes from a pleasant fantasy of a blissful reunion to find himself alone in the bed? Then again - those dreams never included Jack Rackham, nor was there ever a shortage of supplies in his imagination. He stops in front of the door, gathering himself. He is going to open it, and when he does -

“James, I can’t very well fuck you from the other side of this door.” Thomas’ voice sounds, and James sags with relief. He pushes the door open, and finds -

“ _God_ ,” he says fervently, and sees Thomas grin. 

“Not quite,” he answers, “although the comparison is flattering.”

And not entirely without merit, James thinks somewhat blasphemously. In the time since he’s left the hut, Thomas has finished undressing as promised and currently lies, body artfully arranged, on the bed. He has always been beautiful - that has never been in question, but the way the light hits him now, James would be perfectly prepared to swear that one of the Greek deities had come to grace his bed. The hard work he has been doing all these years has left him in good form. He shifts, every inch of skin that has been put so deliberately on display moving, and James can feel his mouth go utterly dry at the sight of him, all long, lean muscle from his neck to the juncture of his legs, his cock lying nestled in the thatch of blond hair that James remembers so well.

“Thomas -” he starts, and Thomas quirks an eyebrow.

“James?” he reminds, and James looks from his lover’s naked form back up to his face, startled. “Close the door,” Thomas reminds, and James swallows hard and then moves forward, letting the door swing shut behind him as he comes to the bed. He leans over, desperate to kiss Thomas again, and Thomas indulges him even as his hands reach for James’ belt buckle and then undo the laces on his trousers and pull them down over his hips, almost fumbling in his eagerness to get at James’ cock. James sheds the garment entirely as he climbs onto the bed, straddling Thomas as he does so.

“I seem to recall something about being worshipped?” Thomas says, and James is so very ready to do just that - to pay proper tribute to the miracle that lies beneath him. He could weep with the sight of the man he has missed so very dearly all these years, but instead, he croaks,

“Turn over.” He raises himself off of Thomas, allowing his lover to shift, and then slides downward on the bed on his hands and knees, raises his hands to Thomas’ perfect arse and spreads his cheeks, then lowers his mouth.

Thomas jerks at the first touch of James' lips to his hole.

“God’s _bones_ ,” he swears, and James feels a grin spread over his face. He repeats the motion, and Thomas gives a low, filthy moan, one loud enough that were they in London, he would need to bite the pillow to stifle it. They are not in London, though. James laughs, and Thomas swears again as James’ touches his tongue to his entrance, his hand flailing wildly behind him until he touches James’ head, his fingers digging into the skin a bit. 

“One day,” he gasps, “you are going to grow your hair back and I am going - to -”  

Whatever he’s planning on doing is lost at the moan that escapes him as James’ tongue breaches him and then he is panting, lost to sensation, and James cannot see his chest heaving or cock straining against his stomach but he can imagine it, can picture it from memory. He can picture, too, Thomas’ hands fisting in the sheets, and he promises himself that the next time they do this he will see Thomas’ face as he brings him to the breaking point. They are going to have many, many “next times.”

Paradise, James thinks, consists of the sounds coming from Thomas’ mouth, uninhibited, as he reduces him to a quivering mess on their bed. It is the sound of Thomas finally managing to gasp out words, mindless, babbling pleas, and the look in his eyes when James finally flips him over again and the feeling when his fumbling, oil-covered fingers slick over James’ cock, guiding him into Thomas at last. It is the feeling that washes over him when he sits, fully seated in his lover, and their eyes meet in mutual amazement and bliss before James begins to move, and it is the chant of James’ name that comes from Thomas’ lips before he comes with a groan, James right behind him. Paradise -

Paradise is the feeling of lying in the bed with Thomas at his side, his lover’s hand stroking his head, and the breathless laugh that starts with Thomas and continues to James and the way that Thomas bumps his nose into James’ and then kisses him on the cheek before they close their eyes, drifting off to sleep together for the first time in eleven years, utterly contented.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... uh... I'm actually quite nervous about the porn even having gotten the greenlight from my beta reader, so comments would be much appreciated to assure me that it's not sucktastic.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, everyone! Work interfered with writing, as did a case of the blahs, but I'm back now! Here - have some fluff as an apology.

Thomas cannot recall the last time he slept so soundly.

He wakes to the sound of birds singing, insects chattering in the Caribbean heat, and James lying at his side, still asleep, still curled in his embrace and for a moment he simply lays still, marveling at the entire experience.

This - this is more than he had ever thought to have again in his life, no matter how many times he has told himself the opposite, as if telling himself he would one day walk free would make it so. There have been far, far too many days when he has wondered if he will ever again know what it is to do this - to lie naked in bed with his lover, comfortable and utterly safe. He has almost forgotten how much he used to love this moment - almost forgotten the feeling of his muscles complaining not from labor but from the memory of pleasure. Then too - he has almost forgotten the way that James looks, this early in the morning, lying next to him with his back snugged up against Thomas’ front, one arm draped over Thomas’ and the other tucked comfortably under the pillow beneath his head. He gazes down at his lover, re-memorizing the sight of James - his profile, the delicate slope of his eyebrows, and the way that the freckles on his face look as if they’ve been artfully splashed there by a careful painter. It takes him several moments to take his gaze from James’ face, mesmerized anew by the sight of him. At last, though, he drags his eyes away from James’ visage, and moves onward to the rest of him.

James, he thinks, has obviously had a hard life in the time since Thomas has seen him. Last night he had run his fingers over each of the scars he can now see so clearly - had given brief consideration to their causes, and now, looking at James’ form once again, it is all he can do to confine himself to a shudder at just how close he has come to never seeing the man he loves again, judging by the placement of some of the marks. And speaking of marks -

In the light of day, the bruising on James’ torso looks all the more alarming. His lover had sworn that it was not as painful as it appeared the night before, but Thomas knows the deep ache of a muscle that has been abused by unfriendly hands - and feet, judging by the shape of some of the darker marks. Thomas cannot extract his hand to do a proper comparison without waking James, but he is willing to bet that if he holds his hand up against some of the bruises on James’ arms, he will find that their shape tells its own grim tale.

He has felt so very little fury on his own behalf, really, these past six years. It is not that he has not experienced it at all, of course. He recalls the first night in Bethlem - the first night that he had realized what his father had done to him, and he recalls the blinding rage that had swept through him, rage that was only sated when he finally heard of his father’s death in the manner Thomas himself had wished to inflict upon him that first horrible night. He has endured things the likes of which he would not have thought possible - has experienced anger, yes, often, and still held himself in check, because he has had little choice, until it became habit, and habit became instinct. In recent years, he has wondered if the capacity for such feelings had left him. Now, though, the sight of such obvious signs of injury on James is enough to send a strange, humming energy running through his veins, enough to cause his teeth to clench even as he is careful to keep his fists uncurled, his touch against James’ ribcage light and gentle. Soon, he thinks, he will ask James again who had caused these - what in God’s name had happened that Captain Rackham had not seen fit to inform him of. For now, though -

God, but James had looked tired. He had scarcely noticed it in the joy of their reunion, but still, it had not slipped his attention entirely. He has little desire to disturb James’ rest, least of all for the sake of asking a question that can wait until later. In truth, he could stay here all day - and yet, his body reminds him, he is not twenty any longer. His stomach growls, his muscles ache, and one by one the various parts of him begin to remind him that there is, in fact, a reason to be up and out of bed.

“James,” he murmurs against his lover’s ear. He is reluctant to do it, but perhaps if he does this right, he can simply inform James that he is getting up so as not to worry him when he wakes and then allow him to turn over and go back to sleep. “James - wake up.”

His reward is a murmur, more of a mumble, truly, and James does not so much as open his eyes.

“James…” It has been eleven years since they have done this, and the memories are dusty. How on Earth had he persuaded his lover to rise from the bed before? “James.” The firmer tone garners him nothing, and he breathes out a sigh. Almost experimentally, he begins to tap the fingers of the hand that is trapped, held against James by James’ own hand. This gets more of a result in the form of a breath that is out of rhythm, and he repeats the motion. This time, James frowns, and Thomas smiles. He reaches forward impulsively and kisses the back of one of James’ ears, and this time his lover’s eyes open, and a sort of sleepy frown is directed his way.

“What -?” James starts to ask. Thomas can see the exact moment that James registers that he is not alone in the bed, and the moment following when he recognizes Thomas’ face. His eyes open wider, and the smile that crosses his face is enough to make Thomas’ fingers itch for paper to draw on. This thought is accompanied by the thrilling realization that for the first time in eleven years, this is a possibility, and he quietly resolves that he will renew his habit of sketching his lover at every possible opportunity. He is free - really, truly free, and he can pursue art again. He can write, and draw, and do all those things that have been forbidden to him for so long. The realization feels like taking a gulp of air after too long underwater, and brings with it a fresh wave of love for the man who lies next to him, looking up at his face with a smile - the man who has helped to make possible his escape from captivity, and Thomas cannot help but lean forward now that James has turned toward him somewhat and kiss his lover once more, harder and more fiercely than they had done the day before. He breathes in, inhaling James’ scent, and his arm tightens slightly around James’ middle. He is _home,_ and dear God on high, he could not be more grateful for what he has been given. At last, he runs out of breath and pulls back from the kiss, still propping himself up on one elbow, looking down at James, whose green eyes have an unfathomable expression in them - a mix of wonder and joy and sheer disbelief that Thomas has not seen there since their first night together.

“You’re more than welcome to begin every morning this way, if you like,” he says at last, and Thomas feels the corner of his mouth lift in a grin.

“I may take you up on that offer,” he answers. James finishes rolling over as Thomas shifts, and raises one hand to Thomas’ face, smiling, his fingers drifting over Thomas’ cheek.

“I still can’t believe you’re here,” he says. “God, Thomas -” He shakes his head, and then raises up off the bed only to pull Thomas down with him, their lips meeting in another kiss. When they pull away again, there is a contented expression on James’ face, one that Thomas has not seen since he arrived and thrills at now.

“This is new,” James says, running his fingers over Thomas’ beard. He had not commented the day before, too caught up in the fact of Thomas’ presence, as Thomas has been with - well, everything, really. He pulls a face.

“Don’t get used to it,” he cautions. “I intend to be rid of the bloody thing as soon as I manage to get out of this bed and find a razor.” He had not done so on the ship mainly because approaching his face with something sharp aboard a moving deck had seemed unwise, and, too, it had been meant to serve as a visual indication that he is not some form of phantom, conjured up from memory. It has served its purpose - he is home, and now -

“Pity,” James says. “It suits your face.”

“I look fifty,” Thomas grouses, and James laughs.

“I suppose you’ll be telling me to trim mine next,” he says, and Thomas -

God, Thomas feels as though it has been a lifetime since he has felt this much joy. It is new, this playfulness - or rather old, and it has been so long since Thomas has told anyone to do anything rather than asking but here, now, the familiar banter comes tumbling out of his mouth before he even has to think about it.

“Last night,” he says, “was wonderful.” He lets James absorb the seeming change in subject, and then moves in for the kill. “But if you want your face to have anything to do with my arse again, then yes, please do reacquaint yourself with the function of a straight razor.”

James blushes - actually blushes, and Thomas had almost forgotten that when James blushes, his entire head becomes involved, from his cheeks to the tips of his ears. He laughs, and James’ blush deepens. Thomas is still smiling as he sits up and slides his legs off of the edge of the bed. He is, he recognizes, quite completely nude, still - he and James had barely taken the time to clean up the night before, let alone pull on clothes before falling asleep and he recalls with a sense of slight chagrin the fate of his trousers.

“James,” he says, “I don’t suppose you have -”

“My spare clothing is in the trunk,” James says. He has still not stirred from the bed - his voice sounds vaguely sleepy, and Thomas hears him groan as he attempts to rise.

“You know, there’s no need for you to get up unless you’ve somewhere to be,” he says, and James shakes his head.

“I’m not letting you wander about the camp by yourself,” he says. “If you’re anywhere near as terrible at finding your way around as you used to be -”

“I’ve gotten better.” They are, he recognizes, verging on the edge of a conversation - one that he has no intention of having on this day, not with the sun shining in on them and joy filling him with the sort of restless energy he has not felt in far too long. He wants to spend this, the first day of his new life, feeling that joy - dedicating himself to finding out who he is in relation to who he was before, not talking about the years that have been stolen from them. James seems to feel much the same, as he does not press the point.

“You know,” he says after a moment, “I originally stumbled across this place after getting quite thoroughly lost.”

Thomas stops, his hand on the lid of the trunk James has indicated, and stares at his lover incredulously.

“Lost? You?” he asks, and James nods and makes a sound of agreement.

“We were blown off course by a storm and arrived here after about a month in the doldrums, and then we were taken prisoner.“

“That’s not getting lost - that’s becoming misplaced,” Thomas laughs. He opens the trunk -

And stops, utterly, the breath leaving his chest for a moment, the laughter fading, replaced by a feeling that Thomas is not even certain he has a name for, be it pain or joy or a strange combination of the two that hits him as he looks into the trunk and comes to a startling realization.

“Good lord,” he breathes.

It is not, he thinks, that James has a large selection of clothing in his sea chest. He is not exactly spoilt for choice, and yet -

He remembers the moment that he had first been dressed in white against his will. It had been in Bethlem, while he had still been reeling in shock - frightened and angry, still convinced that he was having some form of nightmare rather than truly being stripped of both clothing and freedom. They had violated his privacy, left him huddled and shivering in clothing that was not half as warm as his own, and since that moment, he has had nothing colorful. In one form or another, Thomas has worn the uniform of a prisoner for so long, and now that is over. It has not struck him before how very much this moment would mean to him - this moment where he has a choice once more. It has not crossed his mind before now - the very possibility, like so much else about the life he knew before Bethlem, has seemed remote, unfathomable, and yet here he sits, buck naked in front of James’ wardrobe such as it is, and he finds himself utterly overwhelmed at the notion that _he does not have to wear white_.

It’s a silly, small thing. He knows it intellectually. There are other parts to his sudden freedom that should hit him infinitely harder, and yet it is this small, unremarkable thing that brings tears to his eyes. He wipes at them with the pad of his thumb, shocked to find that he is weeping.

“Thomas?” James’ voice sounds concerned, and Thomas looks up.

“Do you know,” he says, “I’ve quite forgotten what color I used to favor?” His voice sounds odd - shaky, suddenly, somehow fragile, and James can hear it, thank God above, because in this moment it is suddenly occurring to Thomas just how much he has to relearn. He reaches out, touching the cloth that sits before him, and only barely manages not to sob at the feel of it. He is going to be able to wear clothing again - real clothing, for real people instead of ghosts - clothing that is made of fabrics that do not scratch abominably against his skin, clothing that is green and red and is that a blue shirt he spots close to the bottom? It looks it, and he grasps hold of the fabric, pulling it upward even as James leaves the bed, the sheets wrapped around his waist to preserve modesty that Thomas has long since been stripped of, and how novel, too, is the realization that no one is ever going to see his bare backside again if he does not want them to? No more cells, no more barracks, no more eyes upon him while he goes about every task, no more wishing to God to have five minutes to himself to simply be without the presence of others. He can - he can -

“Thomas,” James’ voice is saying, “Thomas, breathe.” He is crying in earnest now, he realizes suddenly - tears are running down his cheeks, and he turns his face, burying it in his lover’s bare shoulder, sobbing until the sobs become gasps for breath. He is clinging to James, he realizes - holding onto him as if he might disappear, and that cannot be comfortable and Thomas cannot bring himself to let go. James’ arms are around him, holding onto him gently. He has taken the portion of the sheet that is not wrapped around his own waist and extended it to cover Thomas as well so that he is not kneeling on the floor entirely nude and crying, Thomas realizes eventually, and there they sit, on the floor of the hut, and dear God, is he ever, ever going to be used to any of this?

“I’m sorry,” he says finally. He has stopped weeping at last. His voice sounds hoarse, and his eyes are puffy, but he feels - better, somehow, as if the need to release his sorrow has been building for the past decade and he has now succeeded in letting some of the pressure off of a vessel that had been developing cracks.

“Sorry for what?” James asks, and Thomas lets out a small huff of laughter, relieved and rueful.

“I’m certain you didn’t intend to spend today attempting to keep me from cracking apart while I have what is possibly the most dramatic wardrobe crisis to which anyone has ever been a witness,” he jokes, and sees James’ mouth turn upward in a smile.

“I’ll confess that I hadn’t quite anticipated it,” he answers. “I’d still rather have you here and crying on me than anywhere else. I expect you’ll have to return the favor eventually.”

Thomas smiles, tentative and shaky but there nonetheless, and tightens his hand where it sits on James' thigh.

"What ridiculous ordinary thing could possibly cause you to cry?" he asks, and James winces.

"This position, to begin with," he says. "Can we stand up now?" Thomas laughs, and James hauls himself back up to his feet, making a tiny noise of complaint as he does so. He brings Thomas with him, and they stand for a moment, looking downward at the contents of the chest.

"I think I may have one or two of Miranda's things in there," James warns. "They're buried toward the bottom but -"

Thomas nods.

"I'll -" He takes a deep breath. "I would like to see them, later, if I might," he says. They have talked about Miranda - just in bits and pieces, enough for James to relay her fate to him, and oh, that is another thought for another day. The sting of her absence is still too fresh, for both of them. He can see that James does not want to discuss her yet, and for the moment he is willing to give his lover the space he needs and mourn his wife in private. James nods, and Thomas turns back to the chest's contents.

"Would you like to have me help you on with those?" James asks when he has made his decision - a pair of brown trousers and a blue shirt that seems not to be one that James favors judging by the lack of wear and tear. (Too close to the color of his uniform, Thomas thinks, and feels guilt wash over him again. James has told him not to blame himself and yet -) James, he notices, has already pulled on the same pair of trousers he was wearing yesterday, still stained from the lake water, and Thomas cannot help but feel a bit guilty at taking what appears to be James' only change of clothing. Still - he cannot wander about nude and he has no intention of staying in this hut until his lover can find him some new clothing.

"It's been a very long time since I had a valet," he answers, and James grins.

"Well then, my lord, allow me." He steps forward, and Thomas shivers as James' hands roam over him once before his lover bends and begins to help him to dress. The trousers are a somewhat odd fit, unfamiliar in the way they fall nearly to his ankles, but the shirt is soft and smells like the trunk it has been stored in. He cannot see himself - but James can, and he turns to find his lover looking him up and down approvingly, something unfathomable flashing through his eyes at the sight of Thomas wearing his clothing.

“It’s a little tight across the back,” James observes of the shirt. “You’ve put on some muscle since London. It’s -” He stops, visibly struck once again by the sight of Thomas, and swallows hard. His gaze is appreciative - Thomas cannot properly express how very relieved he is that his lover has not once looked at him with horror or pity since their reunion, but he gives him another crooked smile. Some other day, he will find the words to tell James how very grateful he is for this - for right now, he is looking at James’ own well-muscled form, eyes roaming over his still unclad chest unashamedly.

“I’m not certain these walls would stand up to much of what you’re imagining, love,” he says, and James looks at them speculatively.

“Maybe not,” he concedes. “The ship’s bulkheads, though -” He rakes his gaze up and down Thomas’ body, and Thomas feels heat move through him.

“I’ve only just put these on,” he tells James, but the disapproval is halfhearted at best. He has tried to picture the positioning of James’ freckles in his mind too many times since they took him away - until the image of his lover’s face blurred and the memory of his perfect, equally freckle-dotted shoulders was hazy, and now the real thing stands before him, and good lord James looks as though he’s spent half of the last ten years on deck in nothing but his trousers, judging by the march of the tiny specks of color across his torso and arms. They are there and Thomas has not kissed them yet, and that will not stand.

“You’ve got more freckles than you used to,” he observes. There is a flash of triumph in James’ eyes - triumph and hunger and surprised happiness all in one.

“You never did finish counting them,” he answers, and Thomas cannot help it - he laughs, and takes the few steps back to his lover’s side. He bends, kissing James on the temple, and then takes his arm, leading him back toward the bed.

They do eventually manage to rise. It takes several hours, for there is so much that is new about them both for them to discover, now that there is light enough to do so. There is time enough for Thomas to marvel over the earring in his lover’s earlobe, to assist him in removing it when he asks, saying that he has another he will replace it with later. There is time and light enough for James to kiss over every one of Thomas’ scars, an intent expression on his face, as if by kissing he might soothe the memory of the hurt that goes with each one and Thomas must admit - it helps, at least in part, for now for every memory he possesses of someone piercing his skin and hurting him, he has a memory of James’ lips touching that same area, of his lover murmuring over and over again that he is loved and safe at last and that James will never, ever again allow anyone to treat Thomas in this fashion. He does the same for James and feels his lover shudder at each one, as if some deeper wound were being healed with each kiss. He does not do so with the tattoo on James’ arm - it is different, somehow, and he brushes a thumb over it.

“I didn’t see this last night,” he confesses, and he can feel the brief hitch in James’ breath even if he cannot see his face, sitting behind him as he currently is.

“I got it after my first time over the side,” James tells him. There is something in his voice - a hint, perhaps, of grief, and Thomas simply wraps both arms around him, allowing James’ head to rest against his shoulder as they sit on the bed.

“Your first prize?” Thomas asks, and James nods.

“My first as captain of a pirate crew. We approached them flying French colors. I remember wondering if they were really so stupid - a French ship had no right being in those waters, but it was the only flag we had at the time that wasn’t English and I was still angry enough to refuse to fly those.”

He stops, and Thomas feels a chill settle over him.

“What went wrong?” he asks, and James looks up at him, a startled expression flitting over his face briefly.

“That’s going to take some time to get used to again,” he observes, and Thomas nods.

“I know,” he answers. It has been a decade since he has had anyone whose thought patterns matched his own so exactly, but the fact that he can still read James like an open book is comforting. They may have lost themselves over the past ten years, but they have not lost each other.

“When you’re taking a ship,” James says at last, “it’s a difficult thing to gauge. There are a hundred ways it can go wrong. It wasn’t that I’d never done it before, but I’d never done so when I had no right. It’s the same process, of course, but the reaction -” He swallows again. “I waited until we were almost upon her before I ordered the men to raise the black. In hindsight, I should have given the order much earlier. I should have let her run a bit - given her captain the chance to come to terms with being boarded. Instead -”

“They resisted?” Thomas asks, and James nods heavily.

“It was a fucking slaughter,” he says. “Blood and shit all over the deck, and I remember thinking - Christ, what the hell am I doing? I spent that night more than three sheets to the wind, and when I woke up the next morning -”

He turns his head, his eyes meeting Thomas’, and he seems to search for something in them - some confirmation, and the vulnerability of his gaze nearly causes Thomas to weep. He tightens his arms around James, and feels him lean into the touch, his eyes closing tightly against the tears that have started to gather in them.

“I told myself it was all for you,” he says roughly. “All the fighting, and the killing, and it was. I was hell-bent on making them release you - on bringing you home. I thought that if I just made them fear me - if I made it impossible for them to ignore me -” He shakes his head and swallows hard. “If ever monster stalked the seas, it was me,” he admits. “I was so enraged at what they had done - I couldn’t see past it. For the first three months I felt as though I were trying to breathe and getting a lungful of water every time. I wanted to make them pay. When Ashe told us you were dead -” James shakes his head again, and his hand where it is intertwined with Thomas’ against his chest tightens as his breath turns ragged. “I should have known,” he says, quietly, self-loathing etched into his voice. “I wish to God I had seen it then. If I hadn’t been so determined to find your father and attach his corpse to my rudder, I might have, but -” He shifts, his gaze seeking Thomas’. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I know - it’s not what you would have wanted. Miranda tried to tell me - to make me see reason, but -”

“Stop.” The word issues from Thomas’ mouth before he can even think about it. James tenses in his arms, and Thomas almost wants to retract the word, to apologize, but he cannot. This is one thing he will not have, and he intends to deal with it here and now.

“Stop what?” James asks. There is dread in his voice, and Thomas finds himself both angry and saddened all at the same time. He takes a deep breath.

“James,” he says, “look at me.” His lover turns, and suddenly James’ green eyes are on him, his brows drawn together in a worried frown, his hands in his lap, fingers fiddling with the sheet beneath them. “I’m not your bloody confessor,” Thomas says in a rush, and James’ frown deepens.

“Thomas -” he starts, and Thomas shakes his head.

“No,” he insists. “James - oh for fuck’s sake.” He moves, one hand going to his head, where he fumbles around until he finds what he is searching for. “D’you see this scar?” he asks, his fingers parting the hair near the crown of his head in the back. He glances up. James stops staring for a moment, and nods, apparently transfixed at the sight. “Good,” Thomas answers, letting his hand drop again. “This,” he says, “is where I bashed my head against a wall one day in my cell in an attempt to render myself witless. I tried it -”

“Jesus, Thomas -”

“-after approximately the fourth time I was forced to endure the effects of one of Bedlam’s purges while a crowd of onlookers stared at me as if I were some form of animal in a menagerie. These -” he holds out his arm to show the marks on it, “are the result of the mechanical leech they used on a regular basis to try and purge me of bad humors while I begged for them not to touch me, and this -” Here he turns to show James a scar on his back, “well, I’ve never been able to see that one but I can feel it so I’ll trust that it helps to convey my point. Whatever you have been - whatever you have done - I have suffered worse at the hands of men who fancied themselves civilized and were anything but. Now - I will say this once, because you need to hear it. I forgive you. I know what you have done - all of it, and I’m not angry. I -”

He stops, searching for words, and rakes a hand roughly through his hair. He looks at James. It is not pleasant, what he is about to say, but it is the truth, less than noble though it might be.

“Will you think much less of me if I admit that I am glad to hear that someone remembered me and loved me enough to raise such hell on my behalf all these years?”

He has said it. There it stands - the awful truth, that for all that James has inflicted untold suffering on the world for the past ten years, Thomas cannot find it in him to be angry about it, nor even sorry. He should be. He knows it - the man he had been before they had taken him from his home would have been, and if ever there were an indication beyond the physical of how very far removed he is from that man, this is it, and Thomas does not care. The man who had stood in his drawing room and talked of righting the wrongs of the world had not been cold. He had not been starving, or dizzy, or exiled, forced to work under the hot sun without reprieve or prospect of release and however much Thomas may want that version of himself back, there are parts of him that he cannot ever resurrect, nor does he wish to. Lord Thomas Hamilton had been a good man. Thomas Hamilton, lover to James McGraw, ex-Bedlamite and former slave, is an angry one, for better or worse, and it is best if James understands that now. He looks at his lover, waits for the reaction, heart in his throat. It is silly - he knows it, and yet he cannot help but brace himself for impact, wondering, hoping -

James stares at him, and the horror in his eyes is enough to make Thomas want to curl in on himself.

“I know how it sounds,” he says. “I know -”

“Jesus,” James says, his voice rough. He is staring at Thomas as if he is seeing him for the first time, and Thomas takes a deep breath, bracing himself for the condemnation that must surely come.

“ _Jesus,_ ” James repeats, and then tightens his hands around Thomas’, his grip firm and unyielding and above all else comforting.  “Of course I remembered you. How the hell -?” He stops, and does not finish the sentence. He understands what Thomas has not said - that anyone’s regard has been far from a certainty for Thomas all this time, forgotten by the world as he has been.

“Thomas -” He opens his mouth as though he, too, is searching for words, and comes up visibly empty. “Come here,” he says at last, opening his arms, and Thomas breathes a sigh of relief and goes to them willingly, clinging to James as if his life depended on it. Perhaps it does.

“I’m not a saint,” Thomas tells him, the words muffled into his shoulder. “I know it’s selfish and short-sighted but I spent so many nights wondering if you and Miranda had forgotten me, and I knew you couldn’t have, but I -” He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and James holds him tightly. “I prayed so many times that you hadn’t,” he confesses. “God, James - I can’t believe you found me. I’ve never been so bloody grateful for anything in my life.”

“I’ll tell Madi you said so,” James answers. He moves his hands until they are gripping Thomas’ shoulders, and then he pulls away just a few inches - enough to look Thomas in the eyes.

“You’re safe,” he tells him, his voice low and fierce. “Now, here, with me. No one is ever going to lay a hand on you if you don’t want them to again, and no one is going to forget about you. It’s not easy to believe, I know. I know what it’s like, thinking yourself alone, but I swear to God, it’s never going to happen again, any of it. Do you believe me?”

He does, he realizes. If there were ever anyone that Thomas would trust to keep him safe - to bat the wolves away from his door, should they ever think to return, it is James. Thomas nods, and James hugs him again, his grip on Thomas’ back reassuringly tight.

“If I’m ever in northern Florida, I swear I’ll find that fucking plantation and burn it to the ground,” James says into his shoulder. “The notion of you being kept as a slave -”

“You’re too late,” Thomas tells him, and James pulls back, surprise and confusion on his face.

“Too late?” he asks.

“The house was ablaze when I left and I imagine the rest of the plantation was soon to follow. Courtesy of Captain Rackham.”

A strange set of emotions flickers over James’ face, and then he lets out a bark of laughter, having evidently settled on amusement.

“Ironic,” he says, “given his original intentions. Remind me to thank the fucking weasel.”

He looks amused, but Thomas has caught onto what he is not saying.

“His original intentions?” he asks, and James frowns.

“Thomas -” he starts, and then sighs. He does not release his grip on Thomas, but his hands slide down to Thomas’ waist, holding onto him more loosely. “I nearly joined you there,” he confesses. “It was a close thing - closer than I’d like to admit, and Rackham was involved, if only through his own stupidity in trusting the wrong man.”

“ _Joined_ me there?” The words come out in an incredulous tone. “James - what the hell do you mean?”

He does not want to understand what his lover is telling him. He knows - in his head he knows what James is saying, and yet the very idea -

The amusement has gone from James’ face, and he looks at Thomas, suddenly tired once more.

“It’s a long story,” he says. “Are you sure you want to hear it?”

He does not. He truly, absolutely does not wish to contemplate the thought of the truth that James has been skirting around since last night, and yet -

“Tell me.” He cannot hide from it, nor can James. If he can tell James what has happened to him in Bedlam and after, then he can hear what has put the bruises on his lover’s chest and arms.

“Alright,” James agrees - and then his stomach growls, loudly, and he looks downward and back up at Thomas. “How long has it been since you had anything to eat?” he asks, and Thomas considers.

“Yesterday morning,” he says, and James grimaces. 

“Come on. We’ll find some food and then I’ll tell you the story. It’s as good a place as any to start.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh gods, y'all. This thing - got away from me. It fought me with everything it had, it refused to be written, it demanded it... this chapter took effort, and I'm so glad it's done. Now - let's see how many characters I can jam into the chapter box....

It is the guards on the door that are the final straw.

He is, Thomas reflects, the ex-holder of a number of titles. Lord. Prisoner. Slave. Troublemaker and madman and unwanted son - there are so many, and yet over the past several days it has begun to occur to him that there is something else that he is not and never will allow himself to be again. He is not property - not a commodity to be bought and sold. He is not an animal to be stared and pointed at, not the wayward progeny of a man who viewed his primary purpose in life as getting Lord Ashbourne an heir to inherit the title and name. He has, in all reality, never been so free in all his life. He sits in a hut made of he knows not what kind of wood, with his lover next to him, the whole world laid out in front of them-

And guards at the door and Thomas cannot abide it, from the moment James informs him of their presence.

“Don’t be alarmed,” his lover tells him. “When we go out - there are men at the door. Guards. I wouldn’t want you to think-”

It is too late, though. He knows what James has told him - knows what their function is, but it does not change the sinking feeling in his gut that comes of knowing that his movements could so easily be restricted. It does not change the feeling of helpless rage that wells up in him, likely the result of the last ten years rather than anything that is happening now, but he knows what he feels and he knows that he starts to feel it the moment that he finds out that there are men standing either side of the door, watching their every move. It’s a horrible, heavy feeling - a weight that settles and will not be shifted, and where he was hungry but a moment ago he is suddenly anything but. It’s no good - he cannot rest easy knowing himself under guard once more, and he rises - pacing toward the door.

“Thomas -” James starts, and Thomas turns back.

“I can’t bear it.”  His lover is staring at him, and Thomas resists the urge to turn away, to look away, to give in.

“It’s not -” James starts, and Thomas shakes his head.

It has been a long decade. He has had so many lessons in the fine art of stilling his tongue - lessons that he recalls all too well even now, but in this moment, he is not the man that has learned not to argue. He cannot be - not if he wants to ever regain some semblance of the self he left behind in London. This is not Bethlem, or Oglethorpe’s farm, and he will not be stifled, not now, not one day longer. His voice shakes, and yet he holds firm, and he cannot help the spark of fear and simultaneous pride that lights up inside him. He will not back down - not about this all-important point.

“No,” he says, and he is reminded of the day he stepped beyond the plantation’s walls, only now his tongue has not abandoned him and he will not be choked by his own fear. He will not fear James, of all people. “No,” he repeats. “I have had a lifetime’s worth of being guarded. There have been men watching my every movement for the past eleven years. Can you even imagine what that’s been like? James -” He stops, and catches his breath.

“I do not want to live under guard any longer. I can’t. I -”

He takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again he scarcely recognizes the voice that comes out as he has not heard it from himself in a decade. It is quiet, yes, but not the same quiet that he has been for too long. He speaks, and for the first time in years he thinks he might actually recognize his own voice, or at least the tone of it, firm and decisive in a way he has not been able to afford in years.

“I won’t have it,” he says. The words feel good - they feel right and definite and unequivocal, and he quashes the part of him that wants to shrink away. His words are defiant - and dangerous, and he has learned to know better over the past ten years, and even if this is not Bedlam or the plantation -

James inhales sharply, and Thomas feels his own breathing quicken. This -

This is terrifying, Thomas thinks, and he can feel himself begin to shake. He is giving ultimatums, and who the hell does he think he is? It has been ten years since he has given orders properly. Ten years since he was any kind of authority figure to anyone, ten years of being the one to take commands, and yet this is his hard line. This is the point on which he will not be budged - he is determined.

“Please,” he says softly - not pleading, still, his hands shaking where his voice does not, and James gives him a look - one that is half admiring and half exasperated.

“Come with me,” James urges. “Come out past them. Just follow me, and we’ll talk.”

James’ voice is gentle - patient, even. There is nothing angry in it, and though Thomas knows it was foolish of him to worry that there would be, he cannot help but feel a rush of relief at hearing it. He stands, looking at his lover, and James turns, walking away. He opens the door, walks through it.

And there, Thomas thinks with a sinking sensation - there is his old friend terror again. The relief of the moment before leaves him, and he is left, staring at the doorway, hesitating. It stands open, no barrier to anyone, and yet he still wonders if upon walking through it, he will find his way barred. He cannot bear the notion of being denied the right to come and go - not now, when he has freshly remembered what it is to move unhindered. He cannot risk having it happen again, here - cannot move and risk finding himself once more restrained. If the men guarding the door should move - should attempt to stop him -

Irritation follows apprehension. James promises that they will not, and does he trust his lover, or have the past ten years so broken him as to take even this fundamental part of himself away? The thought makes him angry, gives him strength, and with a deep breath, he steps out beyond the doorway, the guards unmoving as he does so. When he reaches James’ side, he looks back, and finds the two men in exactly the same position they have been in presumably since he and James had set foot inside the hut the night before. Exactly as James had said they would do, and good Lord, what on Earth had Thomas expected? He turns to James, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and James places a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently.

“They’re not here to keep us in,” James says quietly. “Thomas - look at me.” His hands find Thomas’ hands and his lover looks at him, as serious as he has ever been about anything.

“We’re free,” he promises, his voice rough. He looks to the guards. “Mănu,” he says in that same tone, his hands still on Thomas’, “how many men do you think it would take to subdue me?” There is a challenge in his voice - something that Thomas doesn’t recognize, a confident, almost pugnacious tone, as if he were daring the man to answer.

The guard looks at him - then looks to Thomas, and understanding flashes across his face.

“No fewer than eight,” he answers, “on a good day. On a bad -” He shrugs. “Perhaps six.”

James flashes him a smile, and then turns back to Thomas.

“Count them,” he offers. “Do they look like eight men?”

Thomas stares at his lover.

“He - knows this,” he croaks. “He’s thought about it.” The thought horrifies him still further. If the guard has thought it over, that means -

James is shaking his head again.

“No,” he answers. “No - it’s not -” He goes to drag a hand through his hair and gives a huff of disgust when he remembers he has so little. “Christ, I’d forgotten how stubborn you can be,” he murmurs. “He knows because he’s seen it done,” he says. “I’d be in considerably worse condition had he not intervened - he and Madi. We’re in no danger from him or his partner there.”

Thomas frowns. James is firm on this point - convinced and yet Thomas recalls only too well his first days away from Bethlem. He had been grateful, he remembers - grateful at the change in his surroundings, at the rough but serviceable clothing they had given him, at the food he had been allowed to keep down rather than being forced to vomit in a few hours time. He had been so bloody happy for such tiny things and yet now, looking back, he can feel a rush of humiliation at the memory - at the pitiful way that he had clung to his new captors and wept at what he now perceives as the bare minimum of care due to a human being, pathetic in his gratitude. What if James is now making the same mistake that he had done - mistaking basic human decency for genuine kindness, accepting the safety of a gilded cage over the lash of a harsher prison?

“I should be in considerably worse condition had I remained in Bethlem,” he points out. He endeavors to make his tone gentle, and feels he succeeds, even as his voice trembles a little. “That does not make me grateful to the ones that imprisoned me a second time.” He is still eyeing the guards. He does not like this - he cannot, no matter how unconcerned James may be, and he can almost feel eyes on him again, watching, leering -

James takes hold of his shoulders gently, and squeezes, and Thomas takes a deep breath. This is not Bethlem. The men behind them have their gazes fixed outward, unmindful of the two men standing just outside the doorway, and the people passing by on the road below them pay attention only insofar as they note that Captain Flint and his newly arrived lover are indeed standing on the walkway above.  

“This is not that,” James promises, and Thomas has to take another breath, one that shudders a bit, before he can speak again.  

“They never called them gaolers in Bethlem, either,” he points out. “It’s curious how patients always seemed to need such a stringent watch. They recruited half of London to help, in fact.”

His voice is thin, and he is hugging his arms closer to himself, he knows it, and he can read James’ horror at the words in his face, in the way that his hands tighten on Thomas’ arms - and the look that he darts over his shoulder at the two men who are making a valiant effort not to hear, not to care, not to comment. Thomas can see the muscles in James’ face spasm once, and then his lover turns back to him.  

“Come with me,” James urges, his voice rough. “No one will stop us, least of all these two.” He does not take his eyes off Thomas, but when he speaks again it is to the two guards.

“You’re to stay far enough back that I’m not likely to see you if I turn around too quickly. Am I understood?”

The one that James refers to as Mănu nods.

“Yes, Captain,” he acknowledges, Thomas feels surprise run through him, accompanied by skepticism and a sort of reluctant understanding. James can give these men orders - at least to the extent that he decides how closely they follow him. Surely that is a good indication, and yet -

It is not rational, this fear. Thomas knows it, and yet he cannot help but feel it all the same. It is partially due to the change in his routine - or, more specifically, that he no longer has one. He never thought to miss the predictable rhythm of his days at the plantation, and yet now, removed from it, he is horrified to discover that he has come to depend upon it to such a great degree. He has lost all sense of structure to his days, and that by itself seems wrong. He does not have a task to do, and that feels worse than wrong - it makes anxiety wash over him, has him fidgeting, and that too irks him beyond all measure. Worse than that, though - worse than the fear and the irritation, is the realization of what James must think of him, twitchy, hesitant creature that he has become.

He has, he realizes, picked up a number of small habits, and the more of them he discovers the more he silently wonders if there is anything left of Lord Thomas Hamilton, who was so damned self-assured as not to flinch at overhearing loud voices or feel out of place in a crowd, as Thomas finds himself doing during the brief trip they take in quest of sustenance. The version of Thomas James had known, he thinks miserably, would have been peppering James with questions about the island by now. Now, though, he follows behind James, largely silent, watching the way the crowd parts in front of his lover. There was a time, he thinks, when he would have thought nothing of such a reaction - would, in fact, have expected it, much in the same way James seems to now. Lord Hamilton, heir to the Fourth Earl of Ashbourne, had never walked behind anyone like a servant in his life, save his own father, and yet now he finds himself fighting the instinct to allow James to go first, to stay behind, to be led like some kind of damn dog. Lord Hamilton did not wolf his food, either, but Thomas does until he sees the look on James’ face - until he sees the sympathy and then the rage that passes over his lover’s face at his much-degraded table manners and forces himself to slow down, to sit up straight rather than hunching, and he feels his cheeks redden. If his old governess could see him now, he thinks, she would have his head, and the thought sends a further wave of shame through him. He looks down at his plate, and feels James slide closer to him, his shoulder coming to touch Thomas’ in silent reassurance. They are sitting on the bed in James’ hut - in their hut, now, he supposes, and the thought is a warm one to counteract the cold, horrible thing that has taken up residence in his gut at the realization he has just had. He swallows a bite and sneaks a look at James, only to find his lover eating, no sign of tension in the way he holds himself, not saying a word, acting for all the world as if nothing has happened, and he releases a silent breath.

“How often did they feed you in that place?” James asks quietly, and Thomas takes a deep breath.

“Which one?” he asks, and feels James inhale slowly, as if forcing himself to tamp down the anger that Thomas can feel rising in him.

“The plantation,” he answers. His voice is gentle - deliberately calm. He is making an admirable effort to be what Thomas needs at the moment, and Thomas cannot help but appreciate it even as he tries to breathe through the sudden swell of apprehension that washes over him. He closes his eyes.

“Often enough,” he answers. “A hungry slave is one that can’t work.” He picks at the food in front of him, and he can practically hear James’ teeth grind together.

“And Bethlem?” he grits out. There is no hiding the anger boiling below the surface now, and Thomas feels himself responding to it, anger rising in him as well, anger that has very little to do with James and yet -

“You know the answer already,” Thomas snaps. “I hardly need to confirm it for you. You know what that place was like. You know what they -” He stops. He cannot discuss this - he simply cannot, not yet, perhaps not ever, but this is James, and he does not want to keep things from him - nor does he like where this is headed. “It’s proven very difficult to continue caring what fork I use when there was a distinct lack of cutlery on the whole and little enough to use it on,” he finishes quellingly. He is not looking at James presently but rather at his plate, and when he looks up to his lover, there is an expression on his face that Thomas does not understand - one that, were he to name it, closely resembles fear, just for an instant.

“What -?” he starts, and James cuts him off. His lover’s face has done an odd thing - the look on it has shifted, and in past years Thomas would have called that look polite detachment, but in the years intervening James’ face seems to have lost the polite portion and gained a semi-permanent scowl that Thomas does not like one bit.

“If you don’t wish to discuss what happened, I’ll understand,” he says. His voice is rough - laden with the pain and anger he is trying not to show on his face, and Thomas frowns in confusion because he does not believe it to be directed toward him or anything he has done any more than his own anger is actually about anything James has said or done. In truth, it is far more about embarrassment than anger - embarrassment at what they have made of him, and he knows it. He is not angry at James. He is not, and he refuses to be, and this entire brewing argument is utterly without merit of any kind. He takes a deep breath, letting go of his ire. He has had so much practice - surely he can do this again, once more, until he can truly allow himself to be angry at the proper people. Until he can tell James what they have done to him - what he feels about what the world has done to all of them.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I know you didn’t mean -” He stops again. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, and James’ shoulders straighten, the wounded expression on his face transforming into a sort of chagrin. He passes a hand over his close-cropped hair, and his fingers fidget in his lap - a sure sign, at least in the James that Thomas knows, that he is feeling some form of guilt or nervousness.

“I should be the one apologizing,” he says after a moment. “If Miranda could see us she’d ask what the hell it is I think I’m doing.” James’ voice is quiet - apologetic. “She once accused me of fighting for the sake of fighting. At the time I argued with her about it, but she was right about what I was doing. She was always right.” He stops, searching for words. “When you’re ready - if you’re ready - I could -”

Thomas looks at him, and something in his gaze stops James in his tracks. He swallows hard, looking down at the floor, and they sit, quiet, for a moment, not speaking.

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” Thomas says finally. It takes him a moment - a long moment, to find the words he wants to say. This is not his drawing room or his study, and it has been a long time since he attempted to craft an argument, but for James, he will try. “You’ll likely discover half of it on your own as it is. The thing is - I don’t - know, exactly, _what_ it is that’s been done yet,” he finishes. “I can talk about it in general terms, but as to the result - as to what it’s done to me - I think I understand it and then between one day and the next I’ll find something else that has me sobbing on the floor or -” he gestures at the food in front of him, “making a fool of myself -”

“It’s not foolish,” James argues, and Thomas gives him a look.

“James -” he says, and sighs. He runs a hand through his hair, and ignores the hint of a smile that flickers across James’ face at the gesture.

“The point is that I’ve changed,” he says finally with a sigh that borders on being explosive. “This is the most I’ve spoken with anyone in more than ten years. In the past two days I have done more talking than I can recall doing since London. I’ve been fed and clothed - I’ve been treated with greater kindness than I’ve grown to have any expectation of, and while I am infinitely grateful for it, the truth is that I can’t help but wonder when the other shoe is going to drop, not because I suspect anything of you but because the bastards who took me from you and Miranda spent a great deal of time trying to convince me that I could not possibly be worth the saving.” He ignores the look of horror on James’ face at those words. If he stops now he will never start again, and this needs to be said. “What I’ve been through - it’s enough to change any man, and I’m not even certain of the extent of it yet, much less how much of it is Bethlem and how much is that bloody plantation. I don’t -” He stops for a moment and then continues. “I don’t like what it is they’ve made of me,” he finishes. “And trying to tell you - showing you what it is they’ve done and talking about it while I’m still trying to make sense of it myself is -”

His hands have started to shake, now, and he clenches them around his plate. He is not going to do this. Not now, not today, not -

“You don’t have to tell me what they did.” James’ voice sounds rough, still, and the look on his face is not just pained, it’s guilty. “That you’re here is miraculous enough - I’ve no right to demand it of you. I’m not even certain why I asked - poking a sore tooth, I suppose. I’m sorry.”

Wait. No right?

The words go through him, temporarily suspending what he has been feeling up until this moment. What James has just said needs a moment for processing, and when he finally manages to parse what his lover has said -

With a sudden jolt of horror, Thomas sits up straighter. James, he realizes, thinks that he does not deserve to know. He believes that Thomas will keep it from him - will deny him this most basic of knowledge indefinitely. That he is not worthy of knowing, and that -

Well. That will not stand.

“You’ve every right,” Thomas interrupts. “God, James - did you not believe me when I say that I love you still?”

James stops, and stares at Thomas.

“It’s not that,” he starts again after a second, his voice half a croak, “It’s -” He stops. “There are those who might feel that - fondness -” He almost stumbles over the word, and Thomas feels as though someone has grabbed hold of his heart and squeezed.

“Love, James,” he interrupts, and James opens his mouth a fraction, his brows drawing closer together and then apart and he swallows hard. “You can say it. What I feel for you is a great deal more than fondness.” There is a wry tone to his words, and James smiles for half of an instant, his lips twitching upward a fraction, before he remembers what he had been saying and the smile retreats again.

“That love is not enough reason to be truthful,” he finishes.

There is a look on James’ face again - one that makes Thomas angry once more, and he cannot say at whom, but he knows that what he feels is fury at whoever has convinced James of this particular hideous idea. It is not to be borne - not in his James, not now, not ever, and when Thomas gets hold of the particular vermin responsible for the look on James’ face at present, he is going to have Words. Several, and none of them kind. There has been one such - he has no doubt, none at all. James does not speak these words from lack of bitter experience.

“Those people,” he tells James quietly, “would likely have gotten along quite well with my father.” James looks up at him, and Thomas looks him in the eye, not flinching or even blinking. This notion is going to be squashed - firmly, if Thomas does nothing else today, because he will not have James believe that he deserves no better than to be treated as if he were some sort of plaything, to be strung along but never trusted. Never let in, always on the outside - no. Thomas will not have it. He is not property and James is not anyone’s poor, neglected pet, and Thomas will not have him believe himself no better than the hounds guarding some nobleman’s estate. He sets the plate he has been holding down on the bed beside him, and reaches over to lay his hand over James’, wrapping their fingers together.

“I want you to know me,” he tells him firmly. “I want to know you, as well. I want us to rediscover each other - everything about each other. How the hell, after all these years alone, could I bear to have it any other way?”

James looks at him, and the surprise on his face is heartbreaking.

“Thomas -” he starts, and then shakes his head. There are tears forming in his eyes, Thomas is startled to realize, so deeply has the declaration shaken him, and without a word, Thomas opens his arms and brings him closer.

“I swear,” Thomas says, “I will tell you. I don’t intend to be mysterious, only careful. It’s not -”

“Easy,” James finishes, and Thomas nods, his face buried in James’ shoulder still, and now it is he who is allowing himself the comfort of James’ arms as they tighten around him. “I won’t push,” James promises, and Thomas takes a relieved breath at the understanding he hears in his lover’s voice now.

“You haven’t changed as much as you imagine,” James says after a moment, his voice muffled against Thomas’ shirt. He raises his head and brushes his nose against Thomas’ cheek, and Thomas turns his face toward the kiss that follows, his arms still wrapped around his lover.

“I’m glad to hear it,” he says truthfully. He loosens his grip, and draws James back a fraction. The look in the other man’s eyes is one of wonder, now, and shock, and below the shirt he can still see the edges of the bruising James has promised to tell him about. It has something to do, he is certain, with the reason that James is so shocked that Thomas would want to share his past rather than hoarding it to himself. He is curious - so very curious, and yet -

If he will not share the details of his own torture just yet, what right has he to ask about James’?

“If you like,” he says, “you can wait to tell me about this. I know you said you would finish your tale today, but -”

James shakes his head.

“No,” he says regretfully. “It’s not a secret - most of the island knows, and I’d rather you had it from me rather than some half-drunk sailor on the beach getting the details wrong and leaving you thinking God alone knows what.” He swallows hard - and then, with hands that are all but twitching with nervousness, he reaches for the bottom of his shirt and, in one motion, he hauls it off of himself, leaving him sitting on the bed half-naked, the bruises on his torso livid in the light of day.

“I got these,” he begins, gesturing to one set of them, “from a man who told me he had no desire to share his past with me.”

**********************************************************************

_Several Hours Later:_

He has never seen Thomas angry before.

It is a realization that strikes James as he lays on their bed, his lover’s hands stroking over his hair. He has never, ever seen Thomas angry, no matter that he had thought he had back in London. That, he thinks, was a pale echo of the expression he now sees on Thomas’ bearded face. He has never seen his lover’s eyes go this color, or his lips press together quite so tightly, or seen his chest rise and fall with the deep breaths he is taking in an effort to rein in his fury as James waits, as Thomas tries to find the words to say what he wishes to say.

“Silver,” he says, and the word coming from him sounds like a curse. “He’s here, still, on this island?”

James nods.

“He is.”

He is lying on the bed with his head in Thomas’ lap, and from his position, he can see Thomas’ jaw clench at the news. He can feel the tension in him, his hands gentle against James’ skin, and yet James notices the change in Thomas’ posture. He can feel the crackle in the air that results from Thomas’ rage.

In London, he had thought Thomas to be - not without anger, but simply highly skilled at not showing it. He has never before been so close to Thomas when he is incensed about something, and the revelation of how his lover expresses his ire is both startling and entirely welcome, convinced as he has been for the past ten years that he would never learn anything new about Thomas again.

“Describe him to me,” Thomas all but orders. His voice is quiet and his tone almost even, and yet -

He has been different since his return. There is no denying it, nor does James wish to. The Thomas he had known in London had been talkative - irrepressible, some might have said, while others had been less charitable about his lover’s need to converse and to debate. He had had a commanding presence - the kind that caused heads to turn when he walked into a room. He had been a shining star. The Thomas that has come back to him -

James does not know what the bastards who took him have done to him, but whatever it is has, it seems to him, had at least part of its intended effect. Thomas is quieter - although James sincerely hopes that part of that will prove to be simple unfamiliarity with his new surroundings. Still - he has not missed noting the change in his love’s demeanor, either - the way that his eyes flick around the camp almost warily, missing the curiosity they might have held in years past, or the way that he shakes when he raises his voice to speak in the firm, unyielding tones that would once have been second nature to him. It makes James’ heart hurt to see it even as he vows to help Thomas to undo whatever damage has been done to his psyche by the years of abuse. Here, now, though, with Thomas all but vibrating with fury -

Thomas, James suddenly understands, is very much still the man he remembers because he has never been fearless. He has never been without doubt, it is only that the past ten years have brought those doubts to the fore, amplified them, and added a few new members to their ranks, but now, in defense of another - in defense of James - Thomas is the same lion he has always been. It is in every line of his body - in the way that he holds himself, in the look in his eyes, in the inflection of his voice, as if in his utter, raging anger, Thomas has suddenly forgotten what has so evidently been beaten into him over the past several years, and James is more relieved than he can possibly express to discover that whatever has been done, it is in no way irreversible.

“He’s shorter than either of us, and he somehow always manages to look as if someone’s just dragged him up out of the depths and left behind some seaweed while they were at it,” James answers. “Whatever anger you’re feeling -”

“Anger is a poor substitute of a word for what I’m feeling at present,” Thomas answers. James tenses, startled at the near-snarl in Thomas’ voice, and his lover gives him a hard, unyielding look. “He sold you,” he grinds out. “If I were angry about nothing else he has done, that alone would be enough. He _sold you,_ like a cow or a horse or a -” he gestures expressively, “-a damn chicken! Tell me you understand that, please.”

The odd thing is, James is not entirely sure that he does.

He stares at Thomas. The words make sense - of course they do, uttered by the one man in the world he trusts more than himself. Put together, they make a complete sentence, and yet -

“I hadn’t - actually considered it,” he confesses, the words coming out in a croak. It is the truth. Among Silver’s myriad crimes, somehow, he has spared this one the least consideration. He is angry - of course he is angry, and has been from the moment that Silver had revealed the magnitude of his betrayal. He is angry at his betrayal of their cause. He is angry at the heartbreak to which he has subjected Madi. He is furious at the fact that Thomas has spent even one second longer at that plantation than was necessary, that his presence there has been kept from James. There is very little the man has done that James is not angry about, now that he has had the time to think on it, and yet, for some reason, this particular outrage has, until this very moment, been left off his list.

“James - he tried to enslave you,” Thomas says quietly, concern and patience in his voice in equal measure. “If he had succeeded -”

“Does it still count as enslavement if the seller is paying to have someone taken off their hands?” he asks, half flippantly, and Thomas looks at him seriously.

“ _Yes_ ,” he answers emphatically. “It absolutely does. My God, James - do you have any notion what that unspeakable bastard proposed to do to you?”

He is considering it now. The thought may not have occurred to him before, but now, lying here in Thomas’ lap, safe at last, with his lover looking down at him with a slightly incredulous expression on his face - his bearded, weathered face under the hair that is too short, cut by the hand of someone who has no idea what Thomas Hamilton should look like - James can suddenly picture it.

He would, he thinks, have walked through those prison gates possibly never to be seen again, and the thought is a cold, heavy weight in his stomach. Enslaved. Put in chains to toil at another’s direction for the rest of his days. Denied the prospect of a clean, soft bed such as this one and days spent with Thomas doing as they please. Beaten for any infraction, fed only insofar as was convenient, _owned_. There is a sour taste in his mouth suddenly, and he sits up slightly, his eyes seeking Thomas’.

“I think I have a fair idea,” James answers, his voice suddenly rough. He reaches out and runs his hand along Thomas’ lean, scarred arm, and Thomas catches the hand, clasping it in his own.

“If you understand that, then you understand why I have the sudden damn near undeniable urge to strangle him with my own two hands,” he says firmly. “No - don’t try to tell me there’s no need.”

James stares. In all the times that he has imagined a reunion between himself and Thomas - in all those daydreams, and nightmares, and half-desperate conjurings of the same impossible fantasy over the years - he has never once imagined that Thomas might not just condone James’ vengeance. That he might, if pressed, admit to wanting to return the favor James has done him in seeing to Alfred’s fate.

“Thomas -” he starts, and Thomas closes his eyes.

“He hurt you,” he says. “James - don’t try to argue me out of this. This Mr. Silver - he either has no idea what that place was or knows and doesn’t care and I can’t decide which is worse. He has abused your trust, lied to you over and over again, and blamed you for my death and Miranda’s. Worst of all, he has managed to convince you that you are not worth care or affection save when you are useful in some way to someone, and now -”

“He didn’t convince me of that,” James puts in, and Thomas gives him a look.

“Then he has reinforced it, and that is equally unforgivable. James - can you truly not see what he has done to you?”

Thomas, James thinks, cannot see himself, but James certainly can. His lover is not paying attention to the cadence of his voice - to the way it rises and falls, to the way he has begun to gesture with one hand, exactly as he used to in London, and oh, if he could, James would hold a mirror up to him this instant and show him the man that James sees before his eyes. And the things he is saying - the way he says them -

“I don’t deserve you,” James says roughly. He has thought for so long that he would never meet another with Thomas’ zeal - with his dedication to a cause, and he knows now that he was correct. There will never be another - only Thomas, and the way that he says James’ name as if it were something holy, something important, who looks at James himself as if he matters, in and of himself, the way that Miranda used to, and quite suddenly he misses her fiercely. She, he is certain, would be holding tight to both of them right now, her hands combing through Thomas’ hair. She would love this - and agree with Thomas, he realizes, and the thought warms him. She would tell him to stop woolgathering, too, and make up for the lack of her presence in the room.

“James,” Thomas says, “I am trying to impress upon you the importance of recognizing -” He stops as James surges upwards, bringing his face to Thomas’ face, and captures his lips with his own. James can feel the momentary aggravation in Thomas’ huff of breath, and then his lover returns the kiss, running one hand down James’ spine as he does so, the other firmly grasping James’ shoulder. When they pull apart finally, Thomas gives him a look, one eyebrow raised.

“That has never worked to dissuade me from making a point and you know it,” he says, and James gives a murmur of agreement.

“I’m aware,” he answers. He is not attempting to win the argument, after all - not anymore. At present, he is simply enjoying the sound of Thomas’ voice and the solidity of his presence. It is odd, he thinks - three days ago, he had still been full of anger, still fighting against the world. And now -

Now, he is content to listen to his lover trying, as always, to draw him out of his cynical shell and, as always, James finds himself looking forward to both the attempt and his own eventual capitulation. Thomas is welcome to talk him into as much as he wants, as long as he is here to argue.

“You deserve far better than what that unconscionable swine has done to you,” Thomas says, and James raises an eyebrow.

“What do you suggest we do about it?” he asks. “Silver is locked up in the Maroons’ cages. He can’t get at us. He can only lie about waiting for someone to pass judgment on him.”

“And yet here we are, our lives at least partially dictated by the fear of him,” Thomas says. “James - have we not both had enough fear in our lives?”

James sits up fully, and runs a hand over the back of his head, scratching at it briefly as he does so. It is becoming itchy, now - he hasn’t bothered to shave in some time, and with Thomas back, somehow he does not anticipate doing so any time in the near future.

“Madi has said she will pull the guards from my door the moment that Silver is off the island,” he says, and Thomas’ eyebrows raise.

“I assume there is a reason he is still here, then?” he asks, and James gives a sort of helpless shrug.

“They’ve been waiting, I believe,” he answers. “The Maroon Council has been debating a treaty that was in part Silver’s doing. And -” He sighs, “ _-and_ ,” he continues, “I would imagine that they’ve been waiting on my input as to what to do with the slippery fuck, being that he’s my man, when it comes right down to it. He served as my quartermaster and liaison with Madi’s people. I’ve been - less than communicative, this past week.” He looks up from the floor he has been contemplating to find Thomas looking at him, sympathy in his gaze.

“I should imagine,” he says, “that if I had been forced to speak at any great length to or about my father, after Bethlem, that I might have felt the same.” 

Christ, James thinks, if he didn’t love this man already, he would as of right here, right now.

“I truly do not deserve you,” James says, a warbling laugh on the tail-end of the words, and Thomas shakes his head and reaches out, cupping James’ cheek, to bring him in for another kiss.

“You’re wrong about that,” he says. “And when I’m not saving most of my eloquence to have words with the bastard that convinced you of it, I intend to argue until Judgment Day if I must to prove that I am right.”

James startles, and Thomas meets his gaze, unfazed.

“You intend to speak with Silver?” he asks, and Thomas nods.

“I would like to, yes, before you and Lady Madi make your decision as to his fate. It is time, James, don’t you think?”

James looks at him. It _is_ time, he supposes, and yet -

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He swallows hard. There must be enough of Flint left within him for this - there must, and yet -

“James?” Thomas’ tone is gentle, and James opens his eyes again, breath hitching ever so slightly, but Thomas hears it.

“I don’t want to do this,” James admits. The words feel odd in his mouth. He has not said them in so long - has not dared. It has been close to a decade since he has flinched from a decision in this way - a decade of hard, cold, horrible choices that he has made over and over again, and each time he has closed his eyes, and breathed deep, and tried to recall Thomas’ voice. He has recalled, perhaps thousands of times, that Thomas is not there, and why, and now - now Thomas is here and the rage that he needs to continue down this road will not come and _he does not want this_. There is a lump that is forming in his throat from the relief he feels at realizing that he will never search for Thomas’ voice and come up only with memories tinged with pain ever again - from the realization that the long nightmare is over, and with that relief comes newfound resolve. He turns to Thomas - to the man in whose name he has made those decisions - and finds him looking at James with such sympathy that James could weep from that alone.

“I can’t do it,” he confesses, his voice thick. “Not anymore. I know - what he’s done, but I can’t -”

Thomas looks at him, and he feels his cheeks redden.

“This is not about forgiveness,” Thomas says, and James shakes his head.

“No,” he answers, and Thomas nods.

“Alright, then,” he says, and James cannot help but stare at him, shocked.

“If you cannot condemn him, then you cannot do it,” Thomas says, and James could kiss him for it - for the easy acceptance in his voice, for the realization that there is no one pushing him now to make a decision he does not wish to have to live with.

“He was - a friend, once,” James manages to say. “I can’t - there’ve been so many -”

“I felt the same about Peter,” Thomas tells him softly, and James nods, and then his lover’s arms are around him, and he is holding on, breathing in short, sharp gasps as the weight of the past ten years comes crashing down on him again. He will not weep. He will not, and yet he finds that his eyes are wet, and he curses under his breath.

“The quality of mercy is not strain’d,” Thomas quotes at him. “You are not become Shylock. You should not be ashamed of that.”

“Silver may be missing a leg but I don’t recall demanding it of him,” James answers, and Thomas’ arms tighten around him.

“Where will you send him?” he asks, and James looks up, temporarily at a loss for words. It is so easy - almost too easy, and he marvels at how light he feels - how utterly unbothered, as he answers.

“I can think of at least one place.”  

_***************************************************************************_

_Two hours later, The Maroon Village, The Queen’s Complex:_

Madi looks at James, and for the first time, she thinks she might know what he looks like when he is happy.

They are sitting in the room they have retired to to discuss business - the room that not half an hour before, he and his partner had come walking into, Lord Hamilton surprisingly in the lead. They have finished their brief meeting. Thomas has been escorted to the cages to have a word with Silver, and James -

James is sitting across from her, a look on his face that she can only call contentment, his hands wrapped around a mug of the ale that she had had brought so that they could discuss matters, more relaxed than she has ever seen him. He is watching the door - not because he expects trouble, she thinks, but simply because it is the one that his lover had walked through a few moments earlier, with a stern admonishment to James that he was not to follow.

_Something had changed in Thomas the moment he saw the treaty that Madi laid out on the table for his perusal._

_“This is the proposal that was put to you aboard Rogers’ ship?” he asked. His tone was neutral, and yet -_

_James inhaled sharply, and Madi turned to find him looking at his lover - at the look on Thomas’ face. In looking herself, she had to agree. The wheels, she could see, were turning. Thomas’ hands caressed the paper, his gaze fixed on the words. He was gentle with the document - careful, and yet Madi could see the anger blazing in him suddenly._

_“It is,” Madi had said, and Thomas took a deep breath._

_“You are aware -” he started._

_“I am. Can you help me to change it?”_

_He stood, contemplating for a moment, and then nodded._

_“I can try. I suppose,” he said after a moment, “that Rogers is currently sitting in a cage somewhere on this island? Somewhere close to Silver?”_

_She frowned. What -?_

_“He is.” James was giving him a look of mingled admiration and amusement. “You intend to use one against the other?”_

_Thomas did not answer - simply rolled the document up and handed it back to Madi._

_“I would like to have a word with Mr. Silver,” Thomas had said, and James had looked stricken momentarily. “I’ll be back as soon as I’ve finished,” Thomas had told him. “I’d invite you to accompany me but I rather thought you wouldn’t want to lay eyes on him again. Was I wrong?”_

_James had shuddered._

_“No,” he had confessed. “No, you’re not.” Thomas had raised a hand to his cheek, and to her surprise James had simply leaned into the touch a bit. “Be careful,” he’d warned Thomas. “Don’t get within striking range, and don’t dismiss your escort. I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”_

_Thomas had nodded._

_“We are still going to have a discussion about the guards,” he had promised, and she was surprised to see James simply nod._

_“When Silver has left the island, I can withdraw them.” Madi’s voice had caused the pair to turn toward her, and Thomas had given her a surprised expression._

_“I thought -” he started, and then looked at her - truly looked at her, and flushed. “I had expected greater resistance. My apologies - I might have known you would understand,” he had offered, and Madi had decided, right on the spot, that she was in fact fond of him._

_“I do not blame you for your caution,” she had answered. She did not, truly. He had not said as much, but she had seen him eyeing the windows and, perhaps subconsciously, rubbing at one wrist, as if to massage away the phantom pain of a shackle. There were marks around it, she noted - marks Madi knew only too well, and she could not help but sympathize at his discomfort at being guarded. She had experienced something similar, the first few days after James had rescued her from Rogers - the watchfulness, the feeling that her wrists were too light, and she remembered vividly the relief she had felt at leaving the majority of her guard detail in charge of watching over James rather than herself. She understands - and Thomas can see that, she knows, has connected what James has told him of her recent trials with her stake in the war they are still at least nominally waging, and seemingly come to a conclusion that, in all the time Silver had known her, her former lover had somehow missed._

“You look as if you still cannot believe your eyes,” she tells James, and he turns his head toward her. His mouth lifts upward, and, to Madi’s surprise, he gives a small huff of laughter, quiet but genuine.

“I can’t,” he confesses. “I spent ten years thinking him dead. I woke up this morning and I thought - this _cannot_ be real, and yet -” The smile grows, almost as if he can’t control it, and Madi finds herself smiling in response.

“I am happy for you,” she tells him, and watches as James - Captain Flint, the man she has fought beside, the terror of the West Indies - grins at her, almost boyish in his joy.

“Thank you, for your part in it,” he tells her, and dear gods, Madi thinks - she has nearly lost this man, and she could not be more grateful that it has not happened, because the tone of his voice is warm in a way she has never heard it before, and she cannot bear the thought that she might have missed seeing this. “I can wish the circumstances were different,” James continues, “but -” He shakes his head, and then he is rising from his seat, coming around the table, and Madi only barely rises to meet him in time as he places a hand on both her shoulders and then draws her in for a hug, one that lasts for a long moment until she raises her arms as well and returns it, burying her face in his shoulder.

“Thank you,” he repeats, drawing back. He looks - almost embarrassed now, and Madi smiles, at ease with him the way she could not have imagined being even a month ago.

“You are most welcome,” she answers.

*****************************************************

_The Cages:_

Click clack. Click clack. Click clack click clack -

“Just stop,” Woodes Rogers all but moans. “Just one moment - just do anything but that!”

The sound of knitting needles does not cease - if anything, it grows in volume in the small cage which he has been sitting in for the past week.

It does not matter, Rogers has discovered, what he does, or says, or thinks. It does not matter what pleas he utters in the middle of the night. There is only one constant - the neverending, infuriating, bloody horrifying clack of his wife’s knitting needles.

Eleanor never knitted. He knows it, deep down in his bones. She never once in her entire life picked up a set of knitting needles to create whatever it is that her ghost is so assiduously working toward completing. Eleanor - the woman he had met and fallen in love with, who had struggled so very much to adapt herself to the role that she had felt shoehorned into, who had pricked her fingers so often trying to embroider, had never tried something so complex as knitting, and yet it seems that her shade has found an activity that will keep her in his thoughts - something noisy to do, noisy enough that he has begun to sleep with his coat over his ears in a futile attempt to block it out.

“Stop it!” His scream is a hoarse thing by now, his voice worn thin. “For God’s sake stop! I’m sorry! I. Am. Sorry, are you satisfied?! Just stop, stop, please -”

“Will you fucking shut up?” The question comes from the cage a few yards away. The voice uttering it is soft - weary as well, and bitter, the man that owns it slumped against the bars. His eyes are focused on Rogers - pitying, and it is enough to bring whatever spark of defiance is left in him to the fore.

“At least I have the decency to repent,” he snaps. “I don’t sit here pretending to be a martyr to hide my own cowardice!”

“You think it was fucking easy? You think I did what I did so I would be - what, celebrated?” Silver laughs bitterly, and Rogers grimaces.

“I think, given the way that you were dragged in here, that the Maroon Princess and her mother are done with you, and given what you’ve so willingly done to the pair of them, I imagine that you will be lucky to escape this island with your remaining limbs intact,” he says quietly, sharply. “God knows you will deserve anything they do to you.”

Behind him, someone shifts.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

Rogers startles. Silver, he notes, does no such thing. Instead, he sits forward, his eyes suddenly focused entirely on the newcomer.

“Who are you?”

Rogers asks the question. The man standing in the half-light of evening is tall. Rogers can see that - taller than he, even, and blond, and somehow he does not look like a pirate. There is an air about him - one that Rogers recognizes, one that his father-in-law had possessed. It is a kind of faded nobility - the shoulders no longer held straight, hands at his sides not as if they belong there but as if they are used to being active, and yet there is still something commanding in his gaze, and in the tone of his voice.

“Governor Rogers,” he greets. “Oh good. Everyone I want to shout at in one place.”

“You’re him.”

Silver’s voice, Rogers thinks once again, is a sound he would be perfectly happy never to hear again.

“I believe you told me to shut up,” he snaps. “Allow me to return the favor. Shut -”

“You’re him,” Silver repeats, and he can hear the sound of the other man grasping hold of the bars to pull himself up, the chains he is in rattling as he does so. “You’re Thomas Hamilton.”

The man in the shadows steps forward, and Rogers inhales sharply. It is not possible -

“I see James has told you something of me,” Thomas answers, and Rogers can hear his wife’s knitting needles actually cease their clacking for a moment. Everything goes still, and then -

“I can explain,” Silver starts, and Thomas snorts.

He is, Rogers thinks, different, somehow, than he had pictured. There is an edge to Thomas Hamilton - one that Rogers could not have anticipated, and against all odds, he seems to recognize it where Long John Silver patently does not. Experience, perhaps - he had had the misfortune of encountering Alfred Hamilton once, and only once, and suddenly he is reminded that Thomas, for all that he had been accounted a good man by those who knew him, is also Alfred’s son. Rogers sits up straighter, gaze snapping toward Silver, suddenly awake and alert and quite completely terrified.

“Shut up,” Rogers hisses. “For the love of God -”

“I very much doubt that,” Thomas addresses Silver directly, and somehow - somehow, Rogers knows that he will not be sharing these cells with the ruffian on the other side of the bars for much longer. “Please, though - do tell me why you thought you could _abuse and sell_ the man _I love_ and not have me come for your head.”

*******************************************************

“He is well?”

James nods.

“He will be, now,” he answers, and Madi smiles.

“Good,” she says, and James smiles in return.

“How are you holding up?” he asks, and she sighs, and closes her eyes.

“I am surviving,” she tells him, and he reaches out - actually reaches out to her across the table that they are sitting at once more, and squeezes her hand.

“There will be someone else,” he says, and she gives him a look.

“There was not, for you,” she says. He shakes his head.

“Remind me,” he says, “to tell you about Miranda. After the war is over, perhaps - when this is all finished -”

There is a knock at the door, and Madi turns.

“Enter,” she commands, and the door opens to admit Eme, who stands, looking between her and Flint.

“My apologies,” she offers. “Captain Flint - Ma’am -”

“You made it off the island, then,” James says, and Eme’s eyes widen.

“You remember me, from there?” she asks, and he nods.

“And the Andromache before that,” he tells her, and Madi sees her duck her head, embarrassed. “Have I told you what she did to get herself free? Your father was even impressed, and you know that was never easy to do,” James continues, and Madi turns to Eme, one eyebrow raised.

“No - I have not heard the story,” she says. “You will have to enlighten me.”

James gives Eme a smile, and the girl glances at him, alarm flashing briefly over her face.

“Ma’am,” she says, and Madi stands, ushering them both out the door to stand in the causeway between two huts.

“What is it?” she asks, and Eme takes a deep breath.

“The pirates,” she says. “Some of them are getting restless. Your mother would like your aid in seeing to it that they remain placated. She said that if Captain Flint was - awake-” she stumbles over the word, blushing, and Madi laughs.

“He is out of bed, as you can see. I will speak with him,” she says, and Eme looks relieved.

“Good. So far there has been no infighting. Your mother would see it remain that way.”

“So would we all,” Madi tells her, and Eme nods. She starts to turn - starts to walk away, and then turns back, suddenly.

“Ma’am,” she says, and Madi raises both eyebrows.

“Yes?”

“I am glad you have returned safely,” Eme says quietly. “When we thought you were dead - I thought I had failed your father. That I had failed you.” She turns, and then she is gone, walking away, and leaving Madi to stand, touched and slightly confused, on the walkway.

“Anything urgent?” James’ voice sounds from behind her, and she turns.

“A matter for your attention,” she tells him. She cannot decipher the look on his face, but his gaze is not focused on her - instead, he is looking in the direction that Eme has disappeared in.

“James?” she asks, and he turns his attention back to her.

“Apologies,” he offers, and offers her an inexplicable, knowing smile. “Do we have a problem?”

“No,” she answers thoughtfully. “No problem at all.”

For perhaps the first time in a week and a half, she thinks she might believe herself.

**********************************

“-shall I continue, or are you satisfied that I tell the truth when I say that the place you intended to send James was one of the lesser circles of hell?”

Thomas Hamilton’s voice is a whip, sharp, biting, relentless, and John Silver cowers away from him.

“Stop it. For fuck’s sake - stop!”

The words leave Silver’s mouth as a desperate, barked order, and Thomas steps back from the bars, unwrapping his hand from around them as the object of his wrath staggers against the back of the cage, looking ill and horrified.

“You’ve neglected to tell him about the fevers.”

Hamilton turns, and Rogers sees surprise flash over his face.

“You’ve forgotten,” Rogers repeats, “about the agues that carry men off with regularity in such places, or were there no such outbreaks in the hellhole you’ve been describing?”

He has listened for the past half hour or so to the older man’s speech. There has been little else to do - little else but listen to Thomas Hamilton enumerate the ways in which English society has failed him. Little else to do than listen to John Silver argue, and be cut off at every pass. Little to do other than marvel at the man that stands before him, the man after whom he has patterned his own approach to the problem presented by Nassau - and who has so utterly changed his tune since, it would seem, and in hearing his tale, Rogers can scarcely blame him. Indeed - had he himself been put to such extreme hardship, he has little doubt but that he would have reacted no differently.

It is sobering.  Rogers has never been a religious man, but he cannot help but hope to God that should he end this venture not as a free man but as a debtor in prison as he suspects, that he will not be sent to any such place as Oglethorpe’s farm like some kind of livestock. This cage - this cell he sits in feels suddenly too small and reminds him that he is not so very far removed from this newfound fear. How much less fortunate might he have been had he not divorced his wife before this began? How great the chance that his aged former father-in-law might have seen fit to send Rogers himself to just such a place, had he lived to see his son-in-law end this venture with so poor a showing as this one? And if there is one Oglethorpe - might there not be another? He shivers, and looks up to find Hamilton looking down at him, a considering look on his face.

“You are correct,” he says, turning his attention back to Silver for a moment. “There were outbreaks - a great many of them, especially among the newer inmates. I watched fevers carry off half our number in the first year, and then half again as many the next. Have you ever seen a man die of malaria, Mr. Silver?”

Silver shakes his head.

“It’s agonizing, I assure you. Tell me - do you feel important enough to wager that James’ life might have been spared because of your ignorance? Was your damned treaty worth his suffering, do you imagine?”

“Fuck you,” Silver murmurs, and Hamilton steps forward, closer to the bars.

“What was that?” he asks, a glint in his eye, and Silver keeps his head bowed.

“Fuck you,” he repeats, and his voice shakes. “Fuck -” He shakes his head, and Rogers is startled to realize that the pirate’s voice is shaking. “ _Fuck_ ,” he repeats, a groan, followed by a sob, and Hamilton turns away, satisfied.

“You are more ruthless than I had been led to believe,” Rogers says quietly, and regrets it a moment later as Hamilton turns his gaze toward him.

“He harmed James,” he snaps. “And in doing so he condemned thousands to the same slow death of the mind to which I had resigned myself until quite recently, so you will forgive me, Governor Rogers, if I tell both him and yourself what I think of your so-called peace.”

“There is nothing so-called about it.” Rogers is shaking, and he clenches his hands at his sides to prevent them from giving him away. “From what I am told, the Maroons have all but ratified the treaty. Say what you will, but the peace -”

“Is no peace, given that it is founded on a pack of lies as heinous as any I have ever heard, as you are damned well aware.” Hamilton moves toward him, and Rogers takes a step backward.

“You take issue with the terms of the treaty?” he asks, and the look that Thomas Hamilton gives him is scathing - scornful - absolutely devastating.

“I’ve looked at it for all of five minutes,” he says. “Had I tried to move such a document through Parliament with England as the party suing for peace, I should have been hanged for treason on the spot.”

“You believe you can negotiate for better?”

Rogers cannot help his incredulity. He has begged, bartered, and outright promised the impossible for his attempt at civilizing Nassau. The man standing before him has suffered the unthinkable for the same, and yet here he stands, barely recovered from an ordeal the likes of which makes Rogers’ skin crawl, and he seems utterly convinced that he can turn the treaty such that it better benefits the people who have taken him in and imprisoned Rogers.

“I intend to try,” Thomas answers. “Tell me - when you drafted it, had you any notion of seeing it accepted, or was it meant to serve as a prop, the same as the pardons?”

“The pardons,” Rogers reminds him testily, “were your idea.”

“Not the way you implemented them,” Thomas snaps. “Not like -”

“What the hell _did_ you intend?” Rogers is standing now - standing closer to the bars of his own cage. He is incensed - his heart pounding with fury in his chest, ready, if he gets the chance, to reach forward and teach this smug bastard a lesson he will not soon forget. He thinks to come here. He thinks to waltz in, insult Rogers’ work, imply that he could have done a thousand times better, when -

“I intended,” Thomas Hamilton snaps, “to do with Nassau what I now fully intend to finish doing - establishing a stable government with the aid of the people who live there, without tyranny or shame, and this time I will not have my father waiting to fling me into the asylum for the crime of trying to do what is right. Would you care to help, or would you like to be the next one to conveniently disappear when I turn you back over to England?”

Rogers stares.

“You want my help?” he asks, and when Hamilton does not answer -

“What did you have in mind?”

***************************************************************

Thomas rejoins James and Madi two hours after he left them, his face flushed, grin firmly in place, practically bouncing with energy.

“Your treaty,” he says to Madi, “will be rewritten. Oh - and you may release Silver to wherever you have in mind. I don’t imagine he’ll pose much danger to either of you after this.”

He turns to James.

“Now - if it is all the same to you, your Highness - I have an appointment to keep with my barber and I believe James here has offered to show me his ship.”

Yes, he thinks, as Madi dismisses the pair of them and they make their way back home - this is how it should be. Let the world try and stop them this time.

*********************************************************

“How the hell did you get him to agree?”

They are curled around one another. Thomas’ chest touches James’, and their faces lie on the pillow mere inches from one another. Their hands are still wrapped around each other, and James still has his other hand cupped against Thomas’ newly-shaven cheek, his thumb rubbing up and down the soft, untanned skin.

“I put the fear of God into him by way of breaking Silver and then insulted him into wanting to prove me wrong and suggested there might be a way for him to avoid my fate when he returns to England,” Thomas answers. He sounds sleepy - he always is, right after they make love, James recalls fondly. He will be asleep within the next five minutes - they both will, and yet he cannot quite resist the urge to talk, to discuss, to hear the sound of his beloved’s voice, as though he might make up for the past ten years in the space of a day.

“You blackmailed him,” he says, and Thomas rolls his eyes.

“I did nothing of the kind,” he answers. “I stated the truth. If the truth is that England is full of power-hungry, horrible men who will not bat an eye at removing a man like Rogers from their company in the name of greed and progress, that can scarcely be called my fault.”

“The bastard doesn’t deserve mercy,” James grumbles, and Thomas looks at him, his blue eyes serious.

“The man was raving when I arrived,” he says after a moment. “Begging with someone - God Almighty, perhaps, repenting of his sins to all who could hear him. I - forgive me, James, but it appears that I am not so made as to feel no pity when a man asks his God to cease tormenting him from behind a set of bars.”

The loss of Eleanor is still fresh. The events of the raid are still burned into his memory, and yet-

“You are still,” he manages to choke out, “a good man.” It is the truth. Thomas has been through the past ten years, the same as James, and yet somehow - he knows not how - his lover has come out the other side still a man who can forgive, and James cannot help but be humbled and awed at this, the evidence, here in front of him. Thomas smiles.

“As are you,” he tells James, and tilts his chin to kiss him on the forehead. “This time, though, we will defend each other. And the world will say it of us both.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one. more. chapter! I cannot believe that I'm this close to finishing this, and I have all of you to thank for that. As usual - I adore comments of all shapes and sizes. They really, really do keep me writing.


	11. Chapter 11

**_Maroon Camp, April, 1716:_ **

“I never thought I’d find myself holding one of these,” James says, and Thomas looks over his shoulder.

“An invitation - to a treaty negotiation?” he asks, and James hands it over wordlessly.

“Nassau,” he says quietly. “I suppose it’s only fitting.”

“They have requested a meeting?” Madi asks. She hurries over to him, and she reaches for the letter from her position on James’ other side. She has to overreach, James notices - she rests her hand on James’ shoulder in order to balance on the ball of one foot, and he looks up at her, his mouth turning up at one corner.

“Not one word,” she tells him, and James cannot help but look downward at the table, amusement welling up in him, carefully smoothed away by the time he looks back at Madi. She’s short - so very, very tiny, and yet James would not cross her for all the money in the world. Still - he reserves the right to tease now and then. He has taken to doing so - carefully, tentatively, as if he were flexing a muscle he has not used in too long. It feels - good, almost as if he might, just possibly, be human again. She takes the invitation, giving James a warning look as she does so, and he gives her his very best innocent expression as she lowers her gaze to the paper.

“They want us to come to Nassau,” he tells her. “They say they wish to discuss the terms of the treaty- and see it signed.”

There is a hush in the room for a moment. They are on the verge of something - something James has barely dared to hope for, even over the past several months. They are so very close.

“James,” Thomas’ voice says next to him. Thomas reaches over to Madi, plucks the letter from her fingers again - and puts it down on the table in front of James once more. “Look at the signature - the one below that of Lord Townshend.”

James looks - and then sucks in a sharp breath.

“Who,” Madi asks, “is Admiral Hennessey?”

**********************************************************

**_One Month Earlier:_ **

_“There is something you should likely be aware of, before we begin efforts to make peace.”_

_They are meeting for perhaps the fifth time to discuss the treaty as a group. James sits at the table with Jack and Madi both; Thomas is elsewhere for now, taking the opportunity of an entire island that is open to him to stretch his long legs and go for a walk. They have started, now, after two months, to relax somewhat. It is less difficult to let Thomas leave his sight, although he still finds himself becoming restless and anxious when he is gone for too long. Thomas does the same - he has not failed to notice the small sigh of relief that crosses Thomas’ lips when he himself returns to his husband’s side after an absence of a few hours. He suspects they may never completely relax - their separation was too sharp, the years they spent apart too agonizing for them both. Still - they have learnt the extent of each other’s ability to survive. It is heartening, in a way; while neither has any wish to be parted, they may now relax in the knowledge that whatever comes, they may count on each other to fight for their own survival and to reach the other._

_“Get on with it,” Rackham says. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve got three rather terrifying women waiting for me to return to them, and if we don’t wrap this up in the next week, then -”_

_“My name isn’t Flint,” James cuts him off, and Rackham stops, mouth hanging slightly open, hand still wrapped around his mug of ale, halfway to his lips. He lowers it slowly, and gives James a quizzical look._

_“It’s not,” he says. “It isn’t?” This time it’s a question, and one that Madi seems to share, judging by her cocked eyebrow. Or rather -_

_“You don’t seem especially surprised,” he observes, and she tilts her head._

_“Most men do not turn to robbery for their trade without changing their name,” she says. “If only so they may better return to their own lives once they have gotten what they came for. Why should you be any different?”_

_“I was,” Rackham answers, a little indignantly. “Charles was.”_

_“You became a pirate under your own name because it is all that England has left you of your former life, and because you wish to avenge the one who gave it to you,” she answers without missing a beat. “Charles Vane took no false name because he was not a man to live behind a mask, even had he had the need. Many men are not so reckless - or so unattached.”_

_She gestures to Jack to sit, and, shocked, he does so, staring at her as if she may just possibly be some form of magic._

_“How the hell do you do that?” he asks, and she smiles but does not answer._

_“You were saying, Captain?”_

_He gives a shiver, and then nods._

_“When I lived in London,” he says, halting over the words at first. He does not know how to say this, exactly - it feels like a confession of sorts, one that he has made only once before, and that to a fifteen year old girl. “The English delegates,” he says, “are likely to know me by another name. The one I went by until they took Thomas and everything else including my home. I was told I had to leave, never to be heard from again, unless I wished to dance a hempen jig, and so-”_

_He stops. He cannot quite fathom how to continue - there is simply no succinct way to put this, no natural way to lead into it._

_“Your name is James,” Madi says quietly after a second. “That part, I think, was no lie. What, then, were you called before all this began?”_

_She is watching him, her manner calm, her words unhurried, and he takes a deep breath._

_“McGraw,” he answers finally. “James McGraw. I didn’t want you to be shocked when they call me by it - either of you. We’ll need a united front - I don’t want them trying to turn us against each other with undisclosed secrets.”_

_There is silence for a moment - terrible, weighty silence, and then Rackham clears his throat._

_“Christ,” he says. He sounds shaken - utterly horrified. “You’ve been living all these years under a name that isn’t yours? The bastards_ _stole_ _it from you, and you’re only now telling anyone this?”_

_James frowns._

_“It’s not -” he starts, and Rackham stands, suddenly violently agitated._

_“They took_ _your name _ _from you,” he says, and James feels himself startle._

_“I chose a new one,” he says. “After London -”_

_“And the fact that you can construct for yourself a new story - find a new nest to roost in, so to speak - is admirable as hell, but it does not change the fact that they forbade you to use your own under pain of death!” Jack interrupts. “Call it what it is - a theft, of something so important - so sacred \- The name _ _is_ _the man, the man_ _is_ _the name, there’s no separating the two, and that is precisely what they have done. The utter bastards - they should be hung from their own yardarms. To commit a crime so - disgusting, and then call_ _us_ _savages, it’s -”_

_“Captain Rackham -” Madi starts, and Jack rounds on her._

_“_ _Don’t_ _\- tell me to calm down,” he snaps, pointing a finger. “It’s revolting, the entire concept.” He turns to James. “Has your husband said anything about this?”_

_James shakes his head._

_“No,” he answers, thoroughly shocked, and Jack scowls._

_“Of course,” he says. “Bloody nobles - four or five names each and none of them so important as -” He stops, seeing the look on James’ face. “No,” he says. “No, you’re right, that was uncalled for. My apologies to Lord Hamilton.” He sits down again, flops into the chair, and meets James’ eyes. “Would you rather be referred to as Flint or McGraw?” he asks, and James blinks._

_“I hadn’t really thought it over,” he answers, and Jack nods._

_“Right. Would you truly object to hearing it again - your real name?”_

_James stares, and Jack sits, waiting. He was not lying - he has not thought about this, but now that Jack mentions it -_

_“I’ve no objection,” he answers, his voice suddenly gone a bit strange. He’s not crying, exactly, but there’s an odd lump in his throat. He swallows past it, and Jack nods, decisively._

_“Alright. McGraw it is. I’ll see what may be done to spread the word in the camp -”_

_“It will perhaps be best if the men continue to use the name of Flint for the time being,” Madi says, and Jack turns to her, fire in his gaze._

_“Did you not hear?” he asks. “This man,” he points to James, “has been savaged in a way I can scarcely comprehend, over the course of the last ten years, and you would -”_

_“There’s no need for confusion among the men,” James says, and Jack stops._

_“It is_ _your_ _name_ _,” he says. “Yours. Another moment spent being coerced into_ _lying_ _about who you are -”_

_“I’m not going to drop over dead of hearing the other,” James points out, amusement coloring his tone. “You know, now - all of you. It’s - gratifying, in its own way. It’s enough.”_

_Jack shudders._

_“I cannot imagine,” he says. “Alright. I’ll keep my mouth shut if that’s the way you want it. You_ _will_ _tell everyone eventually - and sign the treaty with your own name? I don’t want to find in ten years time that you’ve signed it Flint and somehow invalidated the entire deal.”_

_“Agreed,” James says, and Jack nods._

_“Very well. Now that that’s settled -”_

_“The ships must be loaded,” Madi says, and Jack nods again._

_“Yes. I suppose I’d better give the order. If that is all -?”_

_He stands, and nods at them both._

_“Your Highness. McGraw.” He turns and leaves the room - and James tries to ignore the tiny furl of warmth in his chest at hearing his own name used once again. Perhaps - just perhaps, he thinks, he has been wise to do this after all._

************************************************************

He hesitates before sending the letter they compose in response to the invitation. He holds it in his hands - stares at it, when Madi and Thomas have both left the room. He could sign it Captain Flint. He could send a clear signal, just with his signature. _Anything we were to each other is dead_ , he could say, simply by means of putting his name to this document. _We are done._ And yet -

This is meant, he thinks with an indrawn, shaking breath, to be a negotiation. A cease fire. More than that -

 _“Stay,” Madi had urged him, “and be the man who forced England to sue for terms in return for the life of their Governor. Stay and be the man who forced the British to acknowledge him as an opponent rather than a monster.”_ He intends to be that man - the one that England wronged. He dips his quill in the ink, wicks off the excess, and then, slowly, carefully, he signs his name:

James McGraw

**_Nassau, July, 1716:_ **

James remembers the last time he came to this place in Madi’s company. She does too - he can see it in her eyes as they stand at the rail. They are both thinking of it - it would be nearly impossible for them not to, and yet here they stand, and there is no shouting. No gunfire. There are no ships scuttled in the harbor, and James privately wonders who they have found to clear several tonnes of wood, iron, and rigging in the months since his last arrival here.

The British delegation awaits them on the beach. It is a fearsome sight - or at least it is meant to be. Would be, if not for the way they huddle, restless, on the sand.

They are angry, he knows, and frightened. He’s seen the English ships in the bay - a frigate and a brig, all, evidently, that could be spared from the war with Spain.  They are on loan, he knows, from Thomas’ cousin, Archibald Hamilton, governor of Jamaica - his spies have told him as much. _Their_ spies, truly. He turns his head to Madi, and sees the satisfaction in her eyes at finding all exactly as their people have reported it. There will be no hidden obstacles in the bay this time - no surprises.

Not even among the British delegation. Thomas stands beside him, and once again he marvels at the ease with which his husband has drawn forth the information they need from the man currently locked in a passenger cabin, as a concession to his cooperation over the past several months.

Husband. The word still sends a shiver down his spine and warmth flooding through him. They have no rings to mark their joining, not yet, but they will, and he does not need one to remember the vows they made to each other scarcely a week after finding one another again.  It is the first time that James has ever found himself _grateful_ to be a pirate and not a civilized man - his compatriots have ceremonies, he has found, for such a union, and he still cannot believe the turn of fate that has allowed him to participate in a ritual that he has only looked upon wistfully and performed for others in the past with a feeling of longing despair. He reaches out to take Thomas’ hand where it grips the railing, and the man he loves turns and gives him a smile, fully aware of what is going through James’ mind. He gives James’ hand a squeeze, then links their fingers together, and James allows himself to lean against Thomas’ shoulder, just for a moment, enjoying the feeling of Thomas’ solid strength at his side.

He has absolutely no clue how he would ever have gotten the information out of Rogers without Thomas - or rather, he knows and finds himself grateful that once again, Thomas has spared him the necessity. The former governor has been a fount of information, none of which James has any cause to doubt, given that Rogers is desperate - made so by the imagined threat of being turned over to his countrymen to end up in a place like Oglethorpe’s farm. James well remembers the look that Rogers had cast his way the day they had led him from his cage - the wariness in it, and the near terror as he had looked on the Queen, standing, stern and unyielding, across the table from him.

“You will speak. We will listen,” she had said simply, and Rogers had swallowed hard, and then stood there - and told them everything they could possibly wish to know about the men awaiting them on that beach.

He will never forgive Rogers. He will never like or respect the man, but neither does he feel the urgent desire to stove his face in with his fist. It is… odd. Freeing, and disquieting, and he will examine it another day, when he does not have a delicate treaty negotiation in front of him.

“Captain Rackham will be pleasantly surprised,” Thomas comments, and James gives him half a smile.

“Jack Rackham,” he says in a drawl, “spends his life perpetually astonished because the man’s never had a plan that didn’t depend on luck and a bit of fast talking to get him through it. The end result of careful planning must look to him like some form of witchcraft.”

“I _can_ hear you, you know,” Rackham says from behind him, and James snorts.

“Good,” he says, and Rackham rolls his eyes.

“You know that you become more rude when you’re nervous, don’t you?” he asks. “It’s a terrible tell. No wonder I’ve never known you to gamble.”

“This from the man that tugs at his left ear whenever he’s bluffing,” Thomas says. He shoots Rackham a grin - a brilliant, shining thing that he has been using more and more over the past month, and then laughs out loud when Rackham scowls.

“I’ve never known another rich bastard that got that way at the card table,” Jack mutters, and James can feel Thomas trying to suppress another peal of laughter at the look on the black-haired pirate’s face. “Oh yes, laugh away, the pair of you. Christ. Peas in a pod -”

He continues to mutter, and Thomas shakes against James’ side where their shoulders are still touching, putting a hand over his mouth in a futile attempt to cover his amusement.

“Smile, Captain Rackham. Today, we claim our independence - and you claim what is owed to you.”

“ _Max_ claims what is owed,” Jack corrects. “And much joy may she have of it. Crafty wench.” There is no true animism in his voice, and Madi smiles. She can hear, too, the fondness in Jack’s tone. If this all goes to plan - if they walk away from here today as the masters of their small corner of the world as they plan-

“Mr. Featherstone,” James says, and the shorter man straightens a bit.

“Yes?”

“If all goes to plan, we’ll return to this ship in two days’ time. We’ve discussed what you’re to do if -”

“If it all goes to hell and you get arrested or if we see anything out of place - yes,” Featherstone agrees, and James blinks. The shorter man winces. “New Governor,” he says apologetically. “Sorry - thought I’d try out not being afraid of you.” James snorts, and Featherstone relaxes.

“Just don’t get any ideas about trying it with Max and we’ll all be fine,” Jack says. “Shall we go?”

There is dead silence when they step ashore.

They are arrayed on either side of Madi. She leads - James stands at her right side, his hand on his sword hilt, the other tucked behind him as they come to a halt in front of the delegation. Thomas stands to her left, and Jack behind them all, taller even than Thomas. They make, James thinks, a profoundly strange sight, and he can see the startled, unsettled mutter that goes through the waiting group at seeing three white men so clearly taking their cues from Madi, who stands poised and calm- unflinching. Good, he thinks viciously- let them quake with fear. Let it drive them to acquiesce quickly so as to be spared the need to question their small-minded beliefs. He stands straighter, smirks- and hears a sharp gasp emanate from somewhere among the British delegates.

“Good God,” someone murmurs.

There is, James thinks, a strange satisfaction in this scene. He stands, unmoving, and the British Admiral who stands behind the Governor of Jamaica looks on all of them and at James in particular, a sort of weary almost-relief on his lined face.

“James,” he murmurs, and James meets his gaze, unflinching, unapologetic.

He is not going to react to Hennessey’s presence. He has had time to adjust to the notion of seeing the man again - months, in fact, to prepare for this moment. As Thomas has reminded him - no one is asking him to forgive the man. No one is asking James to debase himself and beg - nor are they asking him to take a sword to the man he once knew as mentor and father, and he finds himself as much relieved at the latter as the former. He looks on the older man, and the red haze that might have descended upon him when still he had thought Thomas to be dead does not make an appearance. He is calm - collected, and he can see the unsettled expression on Hennessey’s face to realize that his former charge is perhaps less perturbed than he himself at this meeting. He looks to Archibald Hamilton, but James is not certain the governor hears Hennessey’s greeting - the man is too busy staring in horror at Thomas, even as his cousin gives him a smile - deceptively pleasant, James thinks.

“Cousin,” he greets, and Archibald Hamilton goes pale. He begins to reach out a hand - starts, and then, his hand still extended, he swallows hard. He retracts it slowly, standing straight. James can still see his hand shaking at his side.

“ _Thomas_ ,” He all but chokes, and Thomas’ smile becomes more predatory in nature.

“I’m certain you won’t object to my presence,” he says. “It gives the entire thing the stamp of legitimacy, wouldn’t you agree?”

“You - you were -” Archibald stammers, and Thomas straightens.

“Far less than pleased,” he finishes his cousin’s sentence softly, “when I discovered how my holdings in this part of the world have been handled in my absence.”He is not smiling any longer. “That ends today. Do as we ask, Cousin, and I’ll settle for the Lord Proprietorship and not the Dukedom.”

If it is possible, Archibald pales further.

“We?” he whispers - and Madi takes the opportunity to step forward.

“Governor Hamilton,” she greets. The man ignores her - he is still focused on Thomas, still agape, still processing. “Governor?” she tries. There is no response, and Hennessey shoots him a look. When it is plain that an answer is not forthcoming, the older man sighs. He steps forward - and James almost flinches, almost, for the look of disgust in Hennessey’s eyes is so familiar, so hauntingly well known to him, and Hennessey seems to recognize it - glances briefly in James’ direction, realization flashing through his eyes, and James is surprised to see his former mentor flinch, his eyes closing, breath coming short just for a moment, and he sighs, his shoulders slumping. He turns to Madi, and she almost turns - almost looks over her shoulder at James, but he shakes his head minutely. He is fine; he refuses to be knocked off his balance at so simple a thing. Hennessey extends his hand, bows over hers - and stands, directly in front of Archibald.

“Please excuse Governor Hamilton,” he says. “He will undoubtedly recover, given time. Princess - it is a pleasure to meet you in person.” Madi nods, her expression impassive, and Hennessey turns to her entourage. “Lord Hamilton,” he greets. “Captain Rackham.” He hesitates for one moment. “Captain McGraw,” he finishes, and James feels something in him falter, the anger he has been feeling turning to confusion at the grief in the Admiral’s voice as he says James’ name. He does not understand - but that does not mean he is going to give him an opening. He straightens, and when he speaks to Hennessey, there is nothing but indifference in his voice.

“Admiral,” he returns - and sees Hennessey lose the battle James has just won, grief and anger and what James is startled to recognize as guilt flashing over his face. He lowers his head a fraction, and in the brief silence, Archibald seems to regain himself somewhat.

“You are welcome to Nassau,” Thomas’ cousin says at last. He seems to have recovered his powers of speech, at least - his voice is still a croak, though, and James wonders if the words truly pain him as much as they seem to. “Shall we proceed?”

As they follow the British delegation off the beach, James allows himself a single relieved breath. They are doing well thus far.

*************************************************************************************

**_London, May 15th, 1716:_ **

_The morning is bright, crisp and clear. There is a breeze coming in through the window, and if he ignores the stench off the streets, he might, Hennessey thinks, almost call it a passable morning._

_Or it would be, if he were not dealing with weighty matters of state. His quill scratches along on the page, the letter he is writing taking form, and his aide continues to read the missive to which he is meant to be responding. He should not, he thinks, give a damn who wrote it. Hennessey already knows what his function is to be during this exchange. He knows what he is meant to do, and regardless of the letter’s content, his own will not change barring an unexpected denial of the proposed truce. It is one last duty, God willing. If all goes as planned, he will be a free man before the ink dries on the parchment, free to go - he knows not where, although it may be that he will not have to go far to begin fixing what it is he has broken. Still - there is something familiar in the letter’s tone. He can almost, if he concentrates, recognize a certain cadence to it - His aide’s voice drones on, and he attempts to refocus his attention on what the man is saying._

_“...we will anticipate your arrival in Nassau by the second week in July. If all is as you promise, then we anticipate a swift and satisfactory end to the conflict. Yours -”_

_Hennessey’s aide falters, and Hennessey looks up._

_“Well?” he demands._

_“It - appears the treaty is to be signed by the Maroon woman, Madi, and -” He has looked back to his writing, but the man stops again, and Hennessey raises his gaze once more more, his brows drawing together, expression thunderous._

_“Admiral -” His aide says. “I think you had better read it for yourself, sir.” Hennessey sighs._

_“Hand the letter here, lad,” he snaps. He gestures, and the hapless lieutenant rushes to hand him the missive._

_“Sir,” he tries again, and Hennessey frowns in disapproval._

_“Enough, lieutenant,” he says. “I believe you will find that the ‘Maroon woman’ is considered a princess among her people, and if you cannot read the remainder of the sentence -”_

_He lowers his eyes to the parchment, and for a single moment, he forgets to breathe._

_“Sir?” His aide asks, voice carefully neutral, and Hennessey lowers the letter to the desk, his hand shaking suddenly._

_“Leave me,” he orders. The words are harsh, snapped in a tone of voice he ordinarily reserves for the quarterdeck. “I will call for you when I require your presence, but for now, be gone.”_

_He turns his attention back to the letter - to the piece of paper that has shaken him so badly, and he barely hears the door shut behind the man as he traces over the words written in a bold, familiar hand, and particularly over the signature he finds toward the bottom._

_“My god,” he whispers. “_ _James_ _.”_

**_The tavern, Nassau, July 1716:_ **

The negotiations, Madi thinks, are going well.

In truth, it is less a negotiation and more a repetition of words she has heard a thousand times. They have been over this - she and Thomas. She and James. She and a council of her people, with her mother in attendance and Julius speaking for his faction, and Madi is heartily sick of hearing every clause, but she cannot allow the British delegates to know that.

“The Crown’s terms are unacceptable,” she repeats herself calmly. “My people will agree not to take in runaways, but we cannot be expected to return them to their former masters.What guarantee have I that in doing so, my own people will not be enslaved as well? And this - ” She holds the treaty up, reading aloud. “If any negroes shall hereafter run away from their masters or owners, and shall come into the hands of the Maroons, they shall immediately be sent back to the chief magistrate of the next parish where they are taken; and these that bring them are to be satisfied for their trouble, as the legislature shall appoint.” She shakes her head. “No. This will not do. I will not have my people sell one another.”

“If you will not be paid for runaways - what would you suggest?”

“I would release them. We cannot take every runaway fortunate enough to make their way to our shores - but we will not deliver them to your hands. They go alone - to wherever they can.”

The governor begins to open his mouth - begins to argue - and somewhere behind him, someone murmurs, and she watches his gaze travel between her and James, and he sighs.

“Very well. Your next point?”

“The next point,” James says, “is mine. We have yet to discuss our remaining seagoing forces - the men and women under my command in our alliance. I would have the universal pardon extended to them if they wish to take it. Governor Rogers has already agreed to my terms - all that remains is for you to confirm that agreement.”

Thomas is watching them. There is approval in his eyes - approval, and fury in equal measure. He has heard these terms. He has written them, more to the point, and Madi can still remember the fire in his eyes on the day he had done so.

_“The terms are perfectly reasonable,” Woodes Rogers had said. “I cannot see how you could expect -”_

_“The terms,” Thomas snarls, “are an abomination. Tell me -” He scans over the document before him. “It says here that all slaves that have left their masters within the last two years are to be returned forthwith. That, Governor Rogers, is a cull of their own people. You would have them make peace - and then hand over half of those who would form the incentive for England to honor this treaty? Half their fighting force? And here -” His finger stabs at the document, and Rogers reads over the clause that Thomas indicates._

_“Tell me, Governor Rogers,” he says softly. “Were you perhaps reading the bible when you wrote this bit? Thirty pieces of silver, perhaps, per man given up to a slaver’s bonds?” He shakes his head scornfully. “No. You will write the following, and I do not wish to hear any complaints about it. As regards any fugitive who shall escape their master and come into the hands of the Maroon People -”_

He has been no less than James had said. Madi would smile at him across the table if she could - this man who has bullied Rogers into feeling shame, or at least something close to it. She is not certain how he has done it - she had tried, there, in the ship before her rescue, and yet -

She shakes her head. She does not know how Thomas Hamilton does it, she is only grateful that he can. She listens to James speak - and sees Thomas turn to watch him as well, his eyes shining, mouth turned up at one corner. One day, perhaps, she will understand - for now, she intends to reap the benefits of her own loyalty to the man now laying out his terms.

“-each man will be given the choice to go or stay. Those who remain will be taken into our naval forces and held a subject not of the English crown, but of the Maroon Queen, her daughter, and their successors, with direct responsibility for their conduct devolving upon me as their commander,” James is saying. “In short - you will have no more piracy from us provided you allow us to govern our own.”

There is a brief silence in the room. Considering looks are thrown - Archibald Hamilton examines the document before him, his gaze traveling up and down, eyes that are very like Thomas’s finally rising to meet Madi’s eyes and then James’. He opens his mouth to speak.

“That would seem to be a reasonable compromise.” The words coming from the governor of Jamaica seem to be a relief to the older man sitting at his right side - the one James says raised him, and Madi cannot help but feel a surge of relief when he utters them. “I am willing to accept these terms. The Crown will be willing to accept these terms. It is decided - unless there are any further points in dispute?”

Madi looks to James. He shakes his head, a slightly surprised look on his face. He has not been expecting this agreement, she realizes - some part of him has still been wondering where the hidden catch is, and if she is honest, she has been wondering the same, but now, it would appear they are getting exactly what they have spent so many months arguing for. She turns back to Archibald, and shakes her head.

“We are satisfied,” she answers.

Archibald seems to take a deep breath of his own, and for the first time since they have arrived on New Providence, there is a hint of a smile on his narrow face.

“Excellent,” he says, and Madi allows herself to breathe a sigh of relief. It is over. Her people have a home.

**************************************************

Night has not yet fallen in Nassau when the treaty is signed.

It’s evening - a surprisingly cool one. The insects are singing outside. The sound of horse hooves may be heard on the street outside the tavern, as well as the low murmur of voices. Within the tavern, though, it is surprisingly quiet - in no small part, Admiral Hennessey supposes, due to the proceedings which have just taken place there. His men have scarcely finished filing out through the door - he should likely join them, and yet -

They are no longer his men. The knowledge weighs on him. They are not his men any longer, and he is not their admiral. Not as of this moment. His duty toward them has been fulfilled. His burden of care for their well-being now belongs to another - it is a strange feeling.

After forty-five years - thirty-five years of service and ten years of agony - he is free, and that means that he has business within the tavern. He must speak to the men still standing within.

“Wait.”

There are women, Hennessey thinks, that might, if they tried, move the course of a river with nothing but their voice. Madi, the princess of the Maroon people, is one such. Certainly, he has no inclination to disobey her when she speaks - her orders issue forth from her, and one might, if one listens hard enough, hear rocks shift to accommodate her plans, and Hennessey has never been fool enough to oppose such a force.

“Highness,” he greets, and Madi steps in front of him. He can see James if he focuses over her shoulder - but to do so would be unwise, and so instead he meets her gaze.

“You intend to speak with him,” she says, and he nods.

“I do,” he admits.

“He has told me of you. _They_ have told me of you.” There is nothing welcoming in those words - nothing of permission. Nothing of forgiveness, and although Hennessey does not seek it from her, he cannot help but flinch. She cannot forgive him - what chance has he of finding any other reception from the ones to whom he does seek to at least make an apology?

He can but tell the truth. After ten years of dissembling to all and sundry, it may even feel liberating.

“I suspect that what you have heard is true,” he says. “I have never known James to lie to one he trusted.”

She looks at him. Her gaze, he thinks, is hard, and cold. There is no give there - no intent to yield.

“I know what you did,” she says. “I know what you said to him, and your part in their misery.”

“You know why I did it,” Hennessey answers. “You know what was at stake.”

“That has not changed. If you seek a meeting -”

“It has. My resignation lies on the Lord High Admiral’s desk in London.”

Madi stands, unimpressed.

“Ten years later,” she snaps. “You broke them.”

Hennessey hangs his head.

“Yes,” he admits. It is the truth. It is the horrible, undeniable truth, and he has no intention of hiding from it. “I did what was necessary, and in doing so, I hurt them both beyond all measure.” He raises his head - and finds Madi still looking at him, her gaze now considering.

“You know this. You regret it,” she says, and Hennessey nods.

“Deeply.“

“You are here to make amends.”

He nods. Her tone is skeptical. She is not convinced, and yet, when she looks back over her shoulder for a moment, something changes in the way she holds herself. She relaxes a fraction and, looking past her, Hennessey suddenly realizes that James’ eyes are on him. She turns back, one eyebrow raised, and looks at him pointedly.

“I am not his keeper,” she says, and Hennessey starts.

“I do not think -” he starts, and Madi snorts.

“You were thinking it,” she says. “I say this only. You are no longer an admiral. Be a father, or I will find you.”

She steps aside. Hennessey sees her do it - hears her move past him, out of the tavern, and he finds that he is still not certain what has passed between them. He may, given time - for now, though, he stands just inside the door, considering the two men who stand at the far end of the room.

*************************************

“I can stay, if you like,” Thomas says, and for one moment, James seriously considers it.

It has been a long day.  He can still scarcely believe that it has happened - that he is sitting here, in this place, the ink still drying on a piece of paper that declares to the world that he, James, is now the head of a fleet of men all dedicated now and for as long as he can manage to keep them to the islands that have just been declared theirs by right. Nassau for the pirates, and the newly recognized free island for the Maroons. An end of piracy in the West Indies for the time being, and an end of slavery on two islands. It is less than he had dreamt - and more than he could ever have hoped just a few weeks ago. It is a victory beyond imagining, and now that it is won, he can feel himself beginning to tire. For once, he has no desire to push himself past the point of endurance. The last few months have begun to prove to him that he does not have to - at last, there is no need. Still -

“I’ll speak to him alone,” James answers, and Thomas nods. They have discussed this at length, and come to an agreement, but James cannot help but appreciate the renewed offer.

“I would have you stay,” Hennessey says, and James turns.

“And I would rather not involve Thomas in a shouting match between the two of us and invoke the memory of a man I’m sure we would all rather I weren’t reminded of.”

The words are a growl. They are not at the treaty table now, and this -

Thomas lays a hand on his arm, and James takes a deep breath. Right. This is not what he had intended. Hennessey’s eyes travel between them, his gaze neutral, and James feels Thomas’ grip tighten - feels him tense.

“I’ll see you shortly,” he tells Thomas, and his husband nods.

“If diplomacy fails, at least try for volume control,” Thomas murmurs as he leaves, and despite himself, James gives a huff of laughter. Thomas smiles - and then turns his gaze on Admiral Hennessey, hard-eyed.

“I trust I need not say it,” he says, and Hennessey ducks his head.

“My lord,” he murmurs, and Thomas frowns minutely, his brows drawing together, before he sees himself out of the room.

They stand in silence for a moment, and James wonders where to begin.

“You have something to say.” His voice is odd - unsteady, somehow, for all that it is meant to seem quiet, and calm. “I am willing to hear it.” It is all he can think to say. He has heard Hennessey’s exchange with Madi. He is still reeling at most of it - the notion of Hennessey resigning, for one, is foreign, inconceivable, and far, far beyond that -

“I am sorry,” the man he once considered a father croaks, and James wonders if he is the only one in the room that feels as though the air has suddenly been sucked from it.

“Would you care to repeat that?” he asks. He understands the words - he knows the phrase, and yet it is somehow surreal to hear it being directed at him. He stares, half expecting to be told that his ears have deceived him, but to his surprise, Hennessey steps forward. He lifts his sword belt over his head in one motion.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, his voice steadier. He lays his hat on the table beside the sword belt.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and James understands what he is doing.

“If you intend to go much further -” he starts, trying for humor, and Hennessey gives him an exasperated expression.

“My intention is to apologize, not send you blind,” he answers. At last, with one hand, he reaches up, and hesitates before removing his wig. Slowly, deliberately, he takes it from his head and lays it on the table next to his hat and sword.

“I am sorry,” he says finally, softly, and stands, unadorned, his naval coat the only thing about him that even suggests who he has been to the world for the past half century, and James cannot for the life of him think what to say.

He has aged, James thinks, and not entirely well. There is something thin and stretched about Hennessey - the downturn of his mouth matches James’ own, the lines around his mouth etched not by mirth but by other, darker emotions - grief, perhaps. Anger. Perhaps even the ghost of the rage James knows he is not immune to, much though he might like to pretend. His brow forms a frown of its own volition, now, and, unlike many men his age, he has not gained weight - lost it, rather. His hair, where he still has it, is quite white. He is, in a word, old, and James is suddenly conscious of it in a way he has not been up until this moment.

“It started here,” he says finally, and pulls out a chair, sitting down in it. He gestures toward the one next to him - it’s a strange sort of parallel to the night he first walked into this tavern and met Gates, and one he finds somehow pleasing. “Captain Flint, that is. I became him in this very place, so I suppose it’s only right that I should put him away again here as well.”

Hennessey looks down at the table briefly. When he looks back up at James, there is a world of sorrow in his eyes, and he sits down - slowly, as if doing so hurts. It likely does, James thinks - his own arse is beginning to ache after hours of doing nothing but sitting on it.

“I recall,” Hennessey says, “the day I first heard the name.” He looks at James. “It was not an entirely unpleasant day,” he confesses. “Was it truly necessary to do that to Pickram?”

James gives him a look, and Hennessey gives a soft snort.

“Yes,” he answers his own question, looking down again. “I suppose it was.” He sits, quiet for a moment, and then says, “I regret my part in driving you to this. I regret -” He looks up, and then stops. “I have read,” he says, “the transcript of the trial in Charlestown.”

James closes his eyes. Here it is, he thinks. It had to come from someone. It cannot go without remark - without censure. He sits back in his chair, takes a deep breath - and is startled to feel Hennessey’s hand come to rest on his arm. His eyes fly open, and he finds that the older man is looking at him.

“I am sorry for the loss of Lady Hamilton,” he says quietly, and James starts.

“What -?” he starts to ask.

“I did not know her,” he says, “but I know you loved her. I am sorry.”

James stares.

“That’s not -” he starts, and then runs a hand over his face. “I had expected -” he starts again, and then takes another deep, slightly shaking breath. “Thank you,” he manages, and Hennessey sits back.

“It is over,” he says simply. “I might think to condemn your actions at Charlestown, but I confess myself in possession of a greater understanding as to their cause than men I have heard do so, and furthermore I find that I cannot seem to locate the line where your actions begin and those undertaken by Captain Vane to remove you from Ashe’s custody stop. I might condemn you for the actions you undertook in the months following, but I am not so blind as not to see that if I condemn you for any of your deeds, then I must also condemn myself as the progenitor of the entire wretched mess.” He leans forward. “I am guilty of much,” he says, “but not yet of hypocrisy, I hope.”

James stares at Hennessey. This is not what he has expected to hear - not at all, and it raises a question.

“Ten years,” he says. “Not one letter. You knew where I was. You knew - and you said nothing. What am I to read into that?”

His voice is surprisingly steady, he finds - firm in its accusation, and Hennessey winces.

“I have no excuse,” he answers. “I had thought - perhaps I imagined that you would not hear my explanations, feeble though they are. It is an easy thing, to send a letter, and yet -”

He shakes his head.

“How was I to prove it to you? How was I to say to you - your Lord Hamilton is dead. Your career is in ruins, your name torn to shreds, dreams dashed - but, having lied to you once, you must now trust me once more though I still can offer no aid, no help, no succour for your burdens? How, with your Thomas dead and in the ground as I thought -” He stops. “Perhaps,” he admits, “I did not _wish_ to see you stopped in your fury. Or perhaps I was simply too ashamed to attempt the correspondence.”  

This last comes out as a bitter, self-recriminatory sigh. He means it, James realizes. He truly -

He is not going to weep. He will not -

He squeezes his eyes shut, and his traitor body does not obey him, for tears well in them, and he does his best not to let them fall.

“And Thomas?” he asks hoarsely. “You can forgive me this - what of -”

He cannot finish the sentence. There is nothing wrong in his love for Thomas - he knows it, and yet - it has been ten years, and the sound of Hennessey’s condemnation has not ceased to ring in his ears, and here he sits again, waiting, hoping -

He is not expecting Hennessey to move, and so when he hears Hennessey’s chair move against the planks of the floor - when he senses motion, his eyes open, and he startles, but it is too late to react - the older man is before him, kneeling in place.

“James,” he says, and the name is nearly a plea. “If I am sorry for anything - truly, utterly without defense or condition - I am sorry for this. Look at me?” It is a request, but James cannot do otherwise. His gaze is riveted on the former Admiral - on his father, though he has tried not to think of him in that fashion for the past decade.

“I was wrong,” Hennessey says firmly, his gaze steady, his voice unwavering. “Very wrong. What I said in my office that day - it was necessary, do you understand? It was - demanded of me, and I -” He looks down. “I meant not one word of it,” he admits. “You are no monster, nor ever were. What I have done to you - it is the antithesis of my duty as your mentor. As your - oh to hell with it - as your father, if you will allow me to retain the honor of that title, though I will fully understand if you feel I do not warrant it. I betrayed your trust. I betrayed my own promise. I betrayed you.” He looks up, eyes wet, and James can stand it no longer.

“Stand up,” he says, his voice rough. “You can get up off the floor - please -”

He extends a hand and quite nearly trips over himself as he attempts to help the older man up, grasping Hennessey’s forearm to pull him to his feet. Once he has done so, he does not release Hennessey’s arm instead looking at him, confused and startled -

And deeply, bone-shatteringly relieved. His legs wobble, and he begins to tilt backward - catches himself on the table at the last moment and sits down on it, breathing heavily, attempting not to sob.

“Thank God,” he murmurs, finally, and feels his father sit down beside him. His presence is tentative somehow - as if he would ask permission to be there and yet when James leans forward - when he attempts to cover his face with one hand, attempts to wipe the tears from his eyes, to stop the shaking of his shoulders - he seems to make up his mind. He extends one arm, wrapping it around James’ shoulders in a one-armed hug, and James relaxes into it, allowing his head to tilt backward a little. He turns to look at Hennessey, swallowing hard.

“It was - I imagine that when I left London-” he starts. He does not know where he is going with this, but he has been issued an apology, and now - now that he has gotten what he never actually thought to be offered - perhaps he can afford to return the gesture.

“Your position cannot have been a comfortable one,” he admits, and Hennessey snorts.

“That, my lad, is the understatement of the decade, but had I wanted comfort, I might have taken an easier road to it,” he says. “No - I’ll hear no more. We have both made our mistakes. Do you think we might learn to live with all of them?”

***********************************************************

“You sent Silver away.”

The words, coming from Madi’s left, are not a question. She turns, smiling briefly at Eme’s comfortable presence, and the other woman comes to stand beside her. She does not say anything further, and Madi is once again reminded of how very much she has come to enjoy silence in the wake of the man who talked too much and yet never managed to tell the truth.

“I did,” she agrees.

“That is good,” Eme says quiety. “It is done.”

There is nothing more to the statement. Madi realizes after a moment that she had expected it, somehow. It has been long since anyone spoke to her without meaning more than they said - far too long, it seems, and yet so short a time ago as well. It takes her a moment to process the simplicity of Eme’s statement. It is over. The web is unwoven, the spell broken -

It is over, and Madi stands, and Eme’s hand is so close to her own.

“Yes,” she agrees. “It is ended.” Her hand rests against the railing, and she cannot -

Slowly, as if in a dream, Eme’s hand moves to touch hers - to intertwine her fingers with Madi’s, even as she looks to her for permission - for consent, and Madi curls her fingers, squeezes gently, and Eme breathes a sigh of relief.

“It is begun,” she says, and they grin.

*******************************************************

He is utterly screwed, John Silver thinks.

The fog is too thick. The trees are too dense, there is an echo in the forest -

“Oh fuck,” a voice says behind him. “You. Shit. They sent you?”

He turns, and groans, and the man behind him raises his pistol.

“Hello Billy,” he says.

Completely, utterly fucked.

*****************************************************

“You could come back to London, you know.”

Thomas turns at the sound of his cousin’s voice behind him. The night air has begun to fill with the sounds of revelry - the war is over, and Nassau is beginning to celebrate.

“You’ve committed no crime, and Alfred -”

“Left me as his heir,” Thomas finishes. He gives the other man a chilly smile. “I am aware.”

There is a silence between them for a moment, and Archibald seems to fumble for words. At last, he sighs, and leans against the railing.

“You _were_ missed,” Archibald says. “Whatever you may think -”

“I _think_ ,” Thomas says, “that my repeated sudden disappearance would prove most convenient for you. Is there something you wanted in particular, Archibald, or are you here to offer meaningless reassurances?”

He is restless, he thinks, and it is making him irritable. This is the first time he has spoken with anyone from his previous life save James in ten years. It is also the first time he has stepped foot on New Providence, and in combination -

There is a sound beside him, from Archibald, and motion, and Thomas cannot help it - he flinches, and turns, and finds Archibald standing, looking dumbstruck, and Thomas smiles bitterly.

“I believe I’ve already received all of my father’s legacy he intended me to have,” he says bitterly, and Archibald swallows hard.

“Thomas -” he starts, and then shakes his head. “It’s no use, is it?”

Thomas shakes his head.

“No,” he answers, and Archibald nods.

“As you wish it, then,” he says, and Thomas is surprised to find that there is a lump in his throat - he is suddenly near overcome, and he does not know why. He turns, attempting to hide it - and finds that Archibald has also done the decent thing, and turned away, allowing him to compose himself, and perhaps not every Hamilton is completely without hope, for he does not do the unpardonable and attempt to explain, or force Thomas to confront the matter further. He stands, quiet for a moment, and then turns his attention inward to the tavern.

“I served with him, you know,” he says after a moment. “Your James, I mean.” There is an odd quality to his voice - a wistfulness that Thomas does not understand. “The Battle of Málaga. He likely does not remember it, but -” He shakes his head. “Well. You don’t need me to tell you you’ve chosen well. If there is anything the pair of you need - anything I can do to assist - you will let me know, I hope. Goodbye, Thomas. Good luck.”

He reaches out - and Thomas stands, shocked beyond words, unable to even move as his second cousin squeezes his shoulder and then moves away, heading toward his carriage and the Governor’s mansion for the night. He is not - he cannot have -

“Everything alright?”

James has exited the tavern without Thomas knowing it, with Admiral Hennessey not far behind him. Thomas turns.

“You were in a battle in 1704?” he asks, and James looks momentarily confused.

“I was,” he answers. “How did -?”

Thomas draws in a breath, and it is shaky, but there is a laugh hidden in it - one made of relief, and shock, and above all else a sort of rising giddiness.

“I might,” he says, “have some more good news for us. I -” He runs a hand through his hair, mussing it, and then leans forward, hands going to James’ coat front, suddenly smiling. “All’s well, then?”

James gives him a similar smile - wearier than the one Thomas now sports, but no less relieved.

“It is,” he says. “Thomas - I think -” He shakes his head, and then simply steps forward and, in front of Admiral Hennessey - in front of Madi, and Eme, and the world, he kisses him, and Thomas smiles into it, laughing as his husband wraps an arm around his waist, bringing him closer.

“It’s a lot better than well,” James answers, and Thomas rests his forehead against his husband’s, and smiles.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done. It's really, actually done and I want to thank everyone that commented or left kudos - I'm so glad this was loved by this many people and I'm glad I could do something so cathartic for a lot of you. Special thanks go to my amazing beta reader, gif-maker, and all round dear friend Bean - I could not have done this without you at all and if we weren't on opposite sides of the Atlantic, I'd give you a big hug right now!
> 
> Thomas mentions a dukedom in passing - there wasn't really room to explore it here, but he refers to the Dukedom of Hamilton, which would be held at this time by Archibald's brother James Hamilton. I've inserted Thomas into the family line in such a way that it could be argued he's the rightful heir to that seat, and it's got Archibald a bit worried. 
> 
> Also, for anyone wondering, this is Archibald Hamilton - he's the dead spit of Alfred when he was younger if you ask me but fortunately he wasn't such a shit. He was actually accused of helping pirates in 1716 and arrested, which was the end of his tenure as governor of Jamaica. Obviously here things are a bit different.
> 
> [](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Archibald_Hamilton_of_Riccarton_and_Pardovan.jpg#/media/File:Archibald_Hamilton_of_Riccarton_and_Pardovan.jpg)  
> By Unknown[](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4233718) \- <https://www.geni.com/people/Archibald-Hamilton-of-Riccarton-and-Pardovan/6000000012044274012>, Public Domain, [Link](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62019919)


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